Richard the Third 

>>^2g2-^i?7 AND 

The Primrose Criticism 



■ A primrose by the river's brim * 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
Axi-^ it vi?"' nothing more." 





CHICAGO 

A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 
1887 






Copyright, 

By a. C. McClurg and Co., 

A.D. 1887. 



I ASK you to listen to a few words : first, 
a few general remarks on criticism, and 
then an illustration of them from the play of 
' Richard III.,' or rather from the absence of 
certain things in the play of * Richard III.,' 
which, to my mind, seem to indicate that it 
is not Shakespeare's work. 

I propose to say a few words on one of 
the plays usually attributed to him, — a play 
in respect of which I find myself in the posi- 
tion of poor Peter Bellj seeing little more 
than an ordinary primrose where I perhaps 
hoped to see a plant, a flower of light. I 
mean the play of ' Richard III.' 

James Russell Lowell, 
Chicago, Feb. 22, 1887. 



CONTENTS. 



ilart I. 

FAGB 

The Primrose Criticism ii 

♦ ■ 

^art II. 
The Historical Basis of Richard III. 65 

' ' ♦ '■ 

^art III. 
The Histrionic Richards 109 



PART I. 
THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



" Your reasons are too shallow and too qmck." 




THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



" The pale primroses, 
That die unmarried ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength," 

may have contained virtues of beauty and 
suggestion which escaped the peculiar eye 
of Peter Bell. There may have been a lan- 
guage in them which to other eyes revealed 
ideas of taste, design, wisdom, creation. To 
Peter Bell and his Primrose Criticism many 
another object of beauty in nature, art, and 
literature has appeared to be but common- 
place, though it bore the impress of high 
origin, and carried in upon other minds ex- 
quisite sentiments and edifying speculations. 
The historical tragedy of * Richard III.' ex- 
cites no admiration in the common-sense 
mind of Peter Bell. He fails to discover its 
poetic and dramatic merits, but, more par- 



12 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

ticularly, seems to be oblivious to those mas- 
terly touches of energy and grandeur which 
declare its author to be Shakespeare. Prim- 
rose Criticism assumes to be synonymous 
with Common Sense, which is the only safe 
guide in the study of any subject, whether 
it be the Primrose or 'Richard the Third.' 
It is to be regretted, however, that Peter Bell 
has been so backward in coming forward with 
his peculiar critical method ; and that, as a 
consequence, the world has been studying the 
" thousand-souled " Shakespeare for three hun- 
dred years without the light of common-sense. 
So uncommon was the sense of Pope, Dry- 
den, rare Ben Jonson, and " starry-minded " 
Milton, the poet-eulogists of our glorious bard, 
that they accepted base counterfeits for the 
genuine productions of his inspired pen ! 
So uncommon were the sense and scholar- 
ship of the distinguished commentators and 
editors, — Rowe, Farmer, Theobald, Capell, 
Hanmer, Steevens, Johnson, Malone, Chal- 
mers, Douce, Dyce, and Knight, — that they 
were unable, with a life-long study, to distin- 
guish between the genuine and the spurious 
plays of Shakespeare ! With their master- 
ful knowledge of Ehzabethan literature, and 
their familiar acquaintance with the English 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 13 

dramatists, they do not seem to have had 
the slightest suspicion that ' Richard III.' 
was not written in the style of Shakespeare, 
or that it was unworthy of him and must 
have been the production of an inferior 
genius. 

Alas, that Peter Bell should have been so 
tardy in making his appearance ! But Prim- 
rose Criticism had to await the coming of 
Peter Bell, and Peter Bell the advent of 
Wordsworth. It is certainly only a coinci- 
dence ; but Peter Bell's criticism of the Prim- 
rose was almost identical with Wordsworth's 
estimate of Shakespeare. The author of 
' Peter Bell ' should not blame poor Peter for 
a dulness of vision of which he is himself 
guilty. On the authority of Mr. Buckle, 
Wordsworth once told Charles Lamb that 
Shakespeare was not so great as he was pop- 
ularly estimated to be, and thought that he 
could, if he had a mind, write as well as 
Shakespeare. " But then, you see," said Lamb, 
"he had not the mind.^^ Wordsworth looked 
upon Shakespeare through the very spectacles 
of Peter Bell, and 

The primrose by the Avail's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more. 



14 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

But to all eyes that wear not Peter Bell's 
spectacles the world never grew, before nor 
since, such another primrose. 

" Beware (delighted Poets!) when you sing 
To welcome Nature in the early Spring : 

Your num'rous Feet not tread 
The Banks of Avon ; for each Flowre 
(As it nere knew a Sunne or Showre) 
Hangs there, the pensive head. 

" Each Tree, whose thick, and spreading growth hath 
made 
Rather a Night beneath the Boughs than shade, 

(Unwilling now to grow.) 
Lookes like a Plume a Captaine weares, 
Whose rifled Falls are steept i' th teares 
Which from his last rage flow. 

" The pitious River wept it selfe away 
Long since (Alas !) to such a swift decay ; 

That reach the Map, and looke 
If you a River there can spie ; 
And for a River your mock'd Eye, 

Will find a shallow Brooke." 

Valuable as common-sense may be, possibly 
the sense of man should not grow too com- 
mon, if it would appreciate the most uncom- 
mon sense that ever yet was writ. Let it 
be admitted, however, that the unadulterated 
Primrose Criticism fully appreciates Shake- 
speare's genius, and even places him far above 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 15 

the ignoble possibility of errors and vulgar 
faults j yet it attempts to stab to the heart 
the most celebrated offspring of the poet's 
genius, and then to deny its Shakespearian 
legitimacy. 

It is to be supposed that a shoemaker is 
the best judge of a shoe, an artist of a pic- 
ture, and a poet of verse. But while the cob- 
bler's judgment as to the quality of the shoe 
must be accepted, the soundness of his judg- 
ment as to the age and the maker of it may 
be questioned. The poet may pass judgment 
on the poetical merits of an '■ Iliad,' ' The Faerie 
Queene,' or a ' Richard III.,' but his poetical 
genius and instinct alone are not sufficient 
foundation for a judgment that must rest on 
historical data, on antiquarian knowledge, on 
records, facts, and logic. Let the poet de- 
clare on his judgment that ' Richard III.' is an 
inferior production, — that it by merit holds no 
high rank among dramas. Then let the critic 
have the courage of a Voltaire or a Words- 
worth and attack Shakespeare himself, — 
point out his faults, expose his blunders, and 
show wherein his genius has been overrated. 
Here is critical heroism and enterprise. When 
Peter Bell turned his unique optics upon the 
primrose, and stared in upon its deUcate 



1 6 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

beauty, he did not have the temerity to argue 
that as the primrose is nothing but a prim- 
rose, therefore the Almighty needs to be re- 
lieved of the responsibility of having created 
it. But Peter Bell grows brave as he scruti- 
nizes the dramatic flower known as ' Richard 
III.' To his superb common-sense it is but 
a rank and unsightly weed of low and vulgar 
origin. " But, ' in the name of all the gods 
at once,' charge me not," says Peter, "with 
the unpardonable offence of imputing any 
fault or slightest imperfection to Shakespeare's 
infallible judgment and genius, because '■ Rich- 
ard III.,' you know, must not be attributed 
to his divine, unerring pen." Sublime crit- 
ical courage ! Marvellous veneration for 
Shakespeare ! 

The Primrose Criticism lays down the new 
canon that whatever a genius may do that is 
unworthy of him shall not be attributed to 
him, but shall be branded as a literary found- 
ling. Happy the artist, general, statesman, 
historian, preacher, or poet who may be thus 
easily reHeved of responsibihty for his faults 
and weaknesses ! But is this Common-sense 
Criticism? It is undoubtedly Primrose-sense, 
and Peter-Bell-sense put to criticism ; but, in 
the name of scientific and literary integrity. 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



17 



let it be hoped that it will long remain very 
Uncommon-sense. 

The arguments employed by the Primrose 
Criticism in its attempt to rob Shakespeare of 
* Richard III.' are not sound. One argu- 
ment stands in this shape : Shakespeare never 
wrote deliberate nonsense, nor knowingly in- 
dulged in defective metre. 'Richard III.' 
contains deliberate nonsense and premedi- 
tated defective metre. Ergo : Shakespeare 
^ never wrote the historical tragedy of ' Richard 
III.' With all due and unfeigned respect for 
him who advanced this argument, it cannot 
be accepted as sound and reliable. It sug- 
gests itself to a careful student of the Prim- 
rose method, that it would take very uncommon 
sense at this time to discover whether Shake- 
speare's nonsense was deliberate or not, and 
whether he indulged in defective metre know- 
ingly or unknowingly. The discussion of 
questions of this character is as futile as it 
is unimportant. But if Primrose Criticism 
affirms that Shakespeare never wrote nonsense 
nor indulged in defective metre as a fact, 
there shall be a square issue, which may be 
settled without resort to any transcendental 
speculations. Shakespeare did write non- 
sense, and he indulged very frequently in 

2 



1 8 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

defective metre. Peter Bell must be devel- 
oping a supernatural power of vision in these 
latter days that he is able to discover in every 
production of Shakespeare absolute perfec- 
tion of poetical form, infallibihty of dramatic 
plan, unadulterated wisdom, and impeccable 
fancy. Surely this is finding " infinite deeps 
and marvellous revelations in a primrose." 

There is not a play, among all that are 
attributed to Shakespeare, which can be said 
to be absolutely free from nonsense. Nor is 
there a single play that is absolutely free from 
defective metre. These are the very faults 
which our poet's detractors have most suc- 
cessfully proven against him, and which his 
admirers have most unhesitatingly admitted. 
Rare Ben Jonson was almost prophetic in his 
honest criticism ; writing, it would seem, with 
his eye on the Primrose critic of this far-off 
time. "^ I remember," says he, " the Players 
have often mentioned it as an honor to Shake- 
speare, that in his writing (whatsoever he 
penn'd) hee never blotted out line. My an- 
swer hath beene, would he had blotted a 
thousand. Which they thought a malevolent 
speech. I had not told posterity this, but 
for their ignorance, who choose that circum- 
stance to commend their friend by, wherein 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 19 

he most faulted." Editors and commentators 
have been severely and justly criticised them- 
selves for attempting to correct Shakespeare's 
nonsense and defective metre. The per- 
fection of nonsense has been employed to 
explain away the nonsense of Shakespeare; 
syllables have been added to or subtracted 
from his lines, and absolute prose changed 
into verse to mend the poet's limping metre. 
But the best editions of Shakespeare's works 
at the present time contain, in almost if not 
quite every play, instances of nonsense and 
of defective metre which have fortunately 
been rescued from the literary botchery of 
over-nice emendators whose delicate tastes 
and sensitive ears could not permit Shake- 
speare's art to remain in its original and now 
valuable imperfection. It is the aim of the 
highest Shakespearian scholarship and editor- 
ship to permit this age and all the future to 
know what this singer really sang, and to let 

" sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild." 

The metrical dissonance of an Alexandrine 
or a blank prose line introduced into the har- 
mony of heroic verse has often thrown such 
critics as Steevens, Seymour, and CoUier into 



20 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

the very anguish of hypercriticism and into 
those emendatory spasms that have resulted 
in the infliction of wounds of metrical correc- 
tions upon the original text of Shakespeare's 
plays, which the best and wisest scholarship 
of to-day would heal and obliterate. 

Primrose Criticism affirms that the original 
text of Shakespeare's plays could not have 
contained a faulty verse, nor a passage of 
obscure sense, nor a low, unchaste fancy. 
The conclusion is, that every such defect 
must be an interpolation, which originated 
with actors, short-hand reporters, and brain- 
less critics of the Anti-Primrose school. This 
is certainly a petitio principii^ if we are to 
ignore all the historical and scientific data on 
which an argument for the genuineness of the 
text should be based. 

The scholarly judgment of Richard Grant 
White had not been bewitched by the Prim- 
rose method when he wrote : " Not what 
Shakespeare might, could, would, or should 
have written, but what, according to the best 
evidence, did he write, is the only admissible 
or defensible object of the labors of his editors 
and verbal critics." This is true common- 
sense apphed to the study of Shakespeare ; 
and no critic need fear that he will be " laying 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 2 1 

himself open to the reproach of applying com- 
mon sense to the study of Shakespeare," who 
tramples upon this canon. It may require 
an uncommon sense to determine what Shake- 
speare might, could, would, or should have 
written, — and this the Primrose Criticism, in 
consistency, should never attempt, — but to 
determine what Shakespeare did write may 
require simply that ordinary common- sense 
which is to be distinguished from extraor- 
dinary Primrose common-sense. 

The external evidences of the Shakespearian 
authorship of 'Richard III.' are many and 
indisputable. 

In the Books of the Stationers' Company, 
London, the play is attributed to Shakespeare. 
Four editions of the quarto were issued during 
the author's lifetime. The first edition was 
published in 1597, according to the Stationers' 
Registers. This first edition did not bear the 
name of its author. It was published anony^ 
mously. All the subsequent editions, 1598, 
1602, 1605, 1612, 1621, 1622, 1629, and 
1634, bore the name of William Shakespeare. 
When Shakespeare's complete plays were first 
published, in 1623, 'Richard III.' was in- 
cluded. Nor has that play ever been excluded 
from the undisputed works of Shakespeare. 



22 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

This is at \t2iSt prima facie evidence of the 
Shakespearian authorship of the play. If it 
be argued that some doubt is justified by the 
absence of Shakespeare's name from tlie title- 
page of the first quarto edition, the reply will 
be, that on the same ground doubt should be 
cast on the Shakespearian authorship of ' Rich- 
ard II.,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'Henry IV.,' 
and ' Henry V.,' which even Primrose Criti- 
cism may not be prepared to do. At least 
three editions of 'Richard HI.' were published 
during the lifetime of the author, bearing his 
name, nor was any question then raised as to 
the genuineness of the play. After the author's 
death, as has been stated, this tragedy took its 
place in all the folio editions of Shakespeare's 
works, and has not in a single instance been 
denied its rightful place in subsequent editions. 

It is not altogether unimportant as an argu- 
ment, that this play has passed without chal- 
lenge the scholarly and critical scrutiny of 
Rowe, Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Warburton, 
Johnson, Capell, Steevens, Reed, Malone, 
Chalmers, Harness, Singer, Knight, Collier, 
Halliwell-Phillipps, Hudson, Dyce, White, 
and Clarke, — a score of editors and critics 
whose several and united scholarship is the 
pride and glory of English letters. It will take 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



23 



a more vigorous logic than Primrose Criticism 
employs to set aside the verdict of this splen- 
did array of scholars. 

It may strengthen the confidence of the 
wavering to glance at some of the allusions 
made to Shakespeare in connection with the 
play of 'Richard III.' by contemporaneous 
and immediately succeeding poets. There 
does not seem to have been a suspicion in 
Shakespeare's day that he was not the author 
of this tragedy, or that he had perpetrated the 
literary fraud of putting his name to a drama 
which he did not v/rite. 

One of the earHest references to Shakespeare 
is made in John Weever's Poem (1599), Ad 
Guliebnum Shakespeare. 

" Honie-Tong'd Shakespeare when I saw thine issue 
I swore Apollo got them and none other." 

Of this " issue," the poet mentions " Rose- 
checkt Adonis,'' " Faire fire-hot Veftus,'' 
" Chaste Zucretia,'' and 

*' RojneO' Richard ; more whose names I know not." 

Francis Meres, in his ' Palladis Tamia,' 1598, 
refers to Shakespeare in the words : — 

"As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the 
best for Comedy and Tragedy among the 



24 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Latins; so Shakespeare among y^ English is the 
most excellent in both kinds of the stage . . . 
witness . . . for Tragedy his Richard the 2, 
Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus 
Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet." 

There was a rather broad anecdote current 
in Shakespeare's time, in which both the poet's 
and the actor Burbage's names were associated 
with the name and play of 'Richard III.,' 
which would be out of character here. But this 
same Burbage, Shakespeare's friend and the 
original Richard, is introduced as one of the 
characters in a play entitled ' The Returne 
from Pernassus ; or the Scourge of Simony, 
publiquely acted by the Students in St. John's 
College in Camebridge, 1606.' The following 
lines occur in this play : — 

*^ Kemp. Few of the university pen plaies well, 
they smell too much of that writer Ovid, and that 
writer Metamorphosis, and talke too much of Pro- 
serpina & Jitppiter. Why here 's our fellow Shake- 
speare puts them all downe, I, and Ben Jonson, too. 
O, that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow, he brought 
up Horace giving the Poets a pill, but our fellow 
Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him 
beray his credit. 

Burbage. I like your face, and the proportion of 
your body for Richard the 3. I pray, M. Phil, let me 
see you act a little of it. 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 25 

Philo. Now is the winter of our discontent, 
Made glorious summer by this sonne of Yorke/' etc- 

In a religious poem on ' Saint Mary Mag- 
dalen's Conversion,' written by ' C. J./ 1603, 
the following lines occur : — 

" Of Helens rape and Troyes besieged Towne, 
Of Troylus faith, and Cressids falsitie, 
Of Richards stratagems for the english crowne, 
Of Tarquins lust, and Lucrece chastitie, 
Of these, of none of these my muse now treates, 
Of greater conquests, warres and loves she speakes." 

Richard Brathwaite, in ' A Strappado for the 
Devill,' 1 6 15, writes the lines : — 

" If I had liv'd but in King Richard's days, 
"Who in his heat of passion, midst the force 
Of his assailants troubled many waies, 
Crying A horse, a kingdome for a horse, 
O ! then my horse, which now at livery stayes. 
Had beene set free, where now he 's forc't to stand, 
And like to fall into the Ostler's hand." 

If it be kept in mind that these allusions 
to Shakespeare and his ' Richard III.' were 
made in his own lifetime and during the time 
in which Burbage was gaining celebrity as the 
principal character in the tragedy, the state- 
ment that Shakespeare was credited with the 
authorship of ' Richard III.,' and that this 



26 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

tragedy produced a deep impression on liter- 
ary as well as vulgar minds, will be admitted. 
John Milton was one of Shakespeare's most 
enthusiastic eulogists, and, beyond question, an 
ardent student of his works. It would be re- 
markable for him to have given special atten- 
tion to ' Richard III.' without discovering that 
it was written in a style wholly foreign to the 
manner of Shakespeare, if such were the case. 
It is matter for wonder that Milton's poetic 
tastes, instincts, and judgment did not equal 
the Primrose sense of Peter Bell in detecting 
the un-Shakespearian character of that trag- 
edy. It is still more surprising, if the play is 
so very commonplace and is not the pro- 
duction of Shakespeare's genius, that glorious 
John Milton should have found in that very 
play some of the most striking ideas which he 
has introduced into ^ Paradise Lost,' and that 
he should have quoted from that very play in 
his prose works, where he attributes the play 
to Shakespeare. Sir William Blackstone and 
Edmund Malone could not but think that 
Milton was indebted for his characterization 
of Satan to these Hnes : — 

" Sin, death, and hell have set their marks on him ; 
And all their ministers attend on him." 

Act I. Scene 3. 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 27 

In ' Eikonoklastes/ written in answer to 
^ Eikon Basilike/ in 1690, Milton makes this 
striking reference to Shakespeare and the 
play of * Richard III. : ' — 

" From Stories of this nature both Ancient 
and Modern which abound, the Poets also, and 
some English, have been in this Point so mind- 
ful of Decorum^ as to put never more pious 
words in the Mouth of any Person, than of a 
Tyrant. I shall not instance an abstruse 
Author, wherein the King may be less conver- 
sant, but one whom we well know was the 
Closet Companion of these his Solitudes, Wil- 
Izam Shakespeare ; who introduces the Person 
of Richard the Third, speaking, in as high a 
strain of Piety, and mortification, as is uttered 
in any passage of this Book and sometimes to 
the same sense and purpose with some words 
in this Place, I intended, saith he, not only 
to oblige my Friends, but mine enemies. The 
like saith Richard, Act II. Scene i : — 

* / do not know that English Man alive. 
With whom my soul is any jot at odds. 
More than the Infajit that is born to-night ; 
I thank my God for my humility^ 

" Other stuff of this sort may be read through- 
out the whole Tragedy, wherein the Poet us'd 
not much License in departing from the Truth 
of History, which delivers him a deep Dissem- 
bler, not of his affections only, but of Religion." 



28 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

As the great poets themselves, including 
Jonson, Milton, Dryden, and Pope, never 
questioned the Shakespearian authorship of 
* Richard III.,' so the great actors who have 
won their renown in Shakespearian charac- 
ters, and who have made Richard III. one 
of the most celebrated histrionic represen- 
tations of the EngHsh stage, have never 
detected that Richard was not Shakespeare's. 
Burbage, Ryan, Gibber, Garrick, Mossop, 
Henderson, Gooke, Kean, Kemble, Booth, 
Macready — all the great, original Richards 
— have had as firm confidence in the Shake- 
spearian authorship of this character as they 
have had of Hamlet, Macbeth, Goriolanus, 
Othello, Shylock, or Lear. It is ordinarily, 
if not extraordinarily reasonable, to sup- 
pose that actors of such intelligence and 
genius, actors devoted to the study and 
representation of Shakespeare, would be 
able to detect, if it existed, the un-Shake- 
spearian character of ' Richard III.' The 
universal opinion of the stage is not easily 
to be set aside by the Primrose Griticism. 
Peter Bell has not a more authoritative 
voice than Burbage, Betterton, Gibber, Gar- 
rick, Kemble, Gooke, Kean, Young, and 
Macready. 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



29 



The judgment of learned and philosophi- 
cal students of Shakespeare should not be ig- 
nored in a discussion of this character. Yet 
Primrose Criticism is peculiarly and signifi- 
cantly hostile to anything that approaches the 
uncommon in sense, learning, scholarship, or 
subtlety of criticism ; hence its antipathy to 
German criticism, and the scientific, philo- 
sophical instincts of the German mind. There 
may be method in this madness when Shake- 
speare is under discussion, as it is beyond all 
dispute that the Germans are the broadest, 
profoundest, and most scholarly critics and 
commentators of Shakespeare in the world. 
Englishmen must admit this, as the able and 
candid Furnivall has done. Lessing, Goethe, 
Schiller, Tieck, Schlegel, Ulrici, and Gervinus 
are names that cannot be cast into shadow 
by even such names as Pope, Dryden, John- 
son, Malone, Steevens, Collier, and Halliwell- 
Phillipps. If these open-eyed German critics 
see more in the primrose than the littleness 
and inferiority of it, so do they also see more 
in the dramatic delineation of the character 
of Richard III. than the second-rate genius 
of a Marlowe, a Peele, or a Greene. 

Schiller, with a true anti-Primrose spirit, 
closed his reading of ' Richard III.' with the 



30 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

splendid encomium : " It is one of the sub- 
limest tragedies I know." Ulrici finds in 
' Richard III.' the fifth act of the great 
tragedy of which ' Richard II.' is the first. 
In a very un-Primrose fashion, this philoso- 
pher makes bold to say : — 

" No drama shows more distinctly than Henry 
VI. and its continuation Richard III. how the 
two sides of tragedy and comedy — according 
to their ethical significance — meet in the his- 
torical drama, and become blended into a higher 
unity." 

Schlegel advances a similar theory, and im- 
plies the Shakespearian authorship of ' Richard 
III.' when he says : — 

"These four plays ['Henry VI.' and 'Rich- 
ard III,'] were undoubtedly composed in suc- 
cession, as is proved by the style and the spirit 
in the handling of the subject : the last is defi- 
nitely announced in the one which precedes it, 
and is also full of references to it ; the same 
views run through the series ; in a word, the 
whole make together only one single work." 

This distinguished scholar thinks that the Eng- 
lishmen's great admiration of this tragedy " is 
certainly in every respect well founded." 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 31 

Dr. Gervinus, in his ' Shakespeare Commen- 
taries,' unconsciously arrays himself against 
all Primrose Criticism when he bluntly and 
confidently says, with the assurance of a 
scholar : — 

"Richard III. is Shakespeare's first tragedy 
of undoubted personal authorship ; it is written 
in connection with Henry VI., and appears as 
its direct continuation." 

But the great Professor comes into still closer 
colHsion with the Primrose Criticism when 
he says : — 

"Richard III. shows extraordinary progress 
when compared to Henry VI. . . . The poetic 
diction, however much it reminds us of Henry 
VI., has gained surprisingly in finish, richness, 
and truth ; we need only compare the words of 
Anne at the beginning (Act I. Sc. 2) with the 
best parts of Henry VI., to find how thoroughly 
they are animated with the breath of passion, 
how pure and natural is their flow, and how 
entirely the expression is but the echo of the 
feeling." 

It would seem that Primrose Criticism had 
involved itself in a vastly greater iconoclastic 
enterprise than it had bargained for, in its 
attempt to disprove the Shakespearian author- 
ship of ^ Richard III.,' since scientific criticism 



32 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

demands that the genuineness of all these re- 
lated historical plays be invalidated together, 
or that they ail stand together in their un- 
questioned integrity. 

Attention is further called to the reasons 
laid down by the Primrose Criticism for rob- 
bing Shakespeare of his ' Richard III.' 
^/ It is asserted that the tragedy is not written 
in Shakespeare's style ; that it proceeds with 
a different gait ; that it contains nonsense and 
defective metre ; that it is devoid of humor 
and eloquence; and that it contains whole 
scenes where the author's mind seems at 
dead low-tide throughout, and lays bare all 
its shallows and its ooze, p^ith these serious 
charges made against the tragedy, singularly 
enough, not a shadow of a proof, not even an 
illustration or a quotation, is given in support 
of the charges. 

It may again be suggested that it is remark- 
able that men of the poetical tastes of Jonson, 
Milton, Dryden, Pope, Schiller and Goethe ; 
and men of the critical acuteness and ripe 
scholarship of Johnson, Steevens, Malone, 
Hazlitt, Lamb, Halliwell-Phillipps, and Richard 
Grant White ; and men of the splendid his- 
trionic genius of Burbage, Garrick, Cooke, 
Kean, Kemble, and Macready, have not de- 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 2i2i 

tected the iin-Shakespearian style, the aUen, 
unknown, and vulgar gait of this remarkable 
* Richard III.' 

As to the "nonsense," it would be un- 
Shakespearian if it were absolutely free from it. 
The same is true of the " defective metre." 
If Sophocles, ^schylus, Corneille, Racine, or 
Voltaire were to be our model, then Shake- 
speare would be full of "nonsense." The 
violation or utter ignoring of the Unities, the 
J;rampling under foot of AristoteHan rules of 
dramatic composition, would be considered 
" nonsense " by the classical school. But if 
this be the " nonsense " for which ' Richard 
III.' is condemned, then must many a play of 
Shakespeare's come under the ban of con- 
demnation. Nor is this the only kind of 
" nonsense " that may be found in Shake- 
speare's plays. Ben Jonson made this charge 
in his day : — 

" His wit was in his owne power ; would the 
rule of it had beene so too. Many times hee 
fell into those things, could not escape laughter : 
As when hee said in the person of CcEsar^ one 
speaking to him : ' Ccssar thou dost u^e wrong.'' 
Hee replyed : ' Ccssar did never ivrong^ but 
with just cause:'' and such like; which were 
ridiculous. But he redeemed his vices, with 
his vertues." 



34 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Anachronisms are " nonsense " to those who 
measure by the classical standards ; but if 
such " nonsense " is un-Shakespearian, — and 
none would seem greater to Aristotle, Ben 
Jonson, or Voltaire, — then must nearly every 
play of Shakespeare's be denied its accredited 
merit and high origin. 

* Coriolanus ' is marred and disfigured by 
the " nonsense " of Titus Lartius quoting 
Cato's estimate of a true soldier, when Cato 
was not born until two hundred and fifty years 
after the time in which Lartius mentions 
him. In the same play Menenius Agrippa 
refers to Alexander the Great, more than two 
hundred years before the conqueror of the 
world was born. And the same person 
speaks of " the most sovereign prescription 
in Galen," six hundred and fifty years be- 
fore the great physician saw the light of 
day. 

In the tragedy of ^ Hamlet ' we are aston- 
ished to hear Hamlet and the King in the 
tenth or eleventh century speak of the school 
at Wittenberg, which was not founded until 
1502. Then reference is therein made to a 
performance of the play of 'Julius Caesar,' 
which took place at the Oxford University in 
1582 ! Several references are made to " brazen 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



35 



cannon " which were not in existence in 
Hamlet's time. Here is " nonsense " ! 

In ' Merry Wives of Windsor/ one may 
be surfeited with "nonsense." What right 
has Bardolph, in 1400, to know anything 
about " three German devils, three Doctor 
Faustuses " ? What sense is there in Shallow's 
threatening Falstaff with, " I will make a Star-* 
Chamber matter of it," when the Star-Chamber 
Court was not in existence ? Mill sixpences 
were first coined in 15 61, and the " Edward 
shovel-boards" not earlier than about 1550; 
yet Slender accuses Pistol, in 1400, of picking 
his pocket and robbing him " of seven groats 
of mill sixpences, and two Edward shovel- 
boards." Mrs. Ford, in a most unaccount- 
able fashion, seemed to be familiar with the 
tune of " Green Sleeves " one hundred and 
seventy-five years before it was composed, 
which was in 1580. And Mr. Page had heard 
that " the Frenchman hath good skill in his 
rapier," nearly two hundred years before the 
rapier was introduced. 

In the ' Winter's Tale ' is the famous " non- 
sense " which provoked the ridicule of Ben 
Jonson, to which Drummond refers : — 

" He said that Shakespeare wanted art, and 
sometimes sense ; for in one of his plays he 



36 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

brought in a number of men, saying they had 
suffered shipwreck in Bohemia, where is no 
sea near by loo miles." 

To any sense but Primrose-sense it seems 
" nonsense " for one to put into a drama such 
a dialogue as this : — 

" Ant. Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch 'd 
upon 
The deserts of Bohemia ? 

Mar. Ay, my lord." 

In ^ Henry VI.' mention is made of Machi- 
avel, who was but two years old when Henry 
VI. died. 

It has been charged that it is '^ nonsense " 
for the dramatist to represent Fortinbras, in 
the tragedy of ' Hamlet/ as appearing at a 
certain time in Denmark, and in an hour 
and a half returning victorious from Poland. 
And it is equal "nonsense" to represent 
Othello as passing from Venice to Cyprus 
in a few moments of time. 

All that Bowdler ehminated from the text of 
Shakespeare — " those words and expressions 
. . . which cannot with Propriety be read 
aloud in a Family" — must be branded as 
"nonsense." The mixing up of tragedy and 
comedy in the same play is, by some, con- 
sidered " nonsense." It would indeed be diffi- 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 37 

cult to mention a species of "nonsense " that 
may not be found in Shakespeare. But there 
is hardly one of his plays that has less " non- 
sense " in it than ^ Richard III.' This is true, 
whether the "nonsense" be the "nonsense" 
of vulgarity, of historical inaccuracy, of un- 
naturalness, or of the violation of the Unities 
of time and place. And the very criticism 
which would on the Primrose basis rob Shake- 
speare of ^Richard III.' would rob him of 
nearly every one of his great creations. 

It may be of interest to take at least a 
glance at the suggestion that Shakespeare was 
so perfect in his poetic art that he could not 
have written in faulty style, nor in violation 
of any poetical canon. It is well known that 
he was admired by his contemporaries and 
immediate successors as a natural genius rather 
than as a trained and scholarly artist. 

Ben Jonson, who knew Shakespeare per- 
sonally, was candid in saying : " Shakespeare 
wanted Art. . . . His wit was in his owne 
power ; would the rule of it had been so too." 

Good Thomas Fuller expressed the com- 
mon sentiment of the seventeenth century 
when he wrote of Shakespeare : — 

"He was an eminent instance of the truth 
of that rule, ' Poeta Hon fit, sed iiascitur; ' one 



38 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

is not 7nade, but born a poet. Indeed his 
learning was very little, so that, as Cornish 
diatnonds are not polished by any Lapidary, 
but are pointed and smoothed even as they are 
taken out of the earth, so Nature itself was all 
the Art which was used upon him." 

Berkenhead, in praising Beaumont and 
Fletcher, most justly said : — 

" Brave Shakespeare flow'd, yet had his Ebbings too, 
Often above Himselfe, sometimes below." 

Milton, master of poetic art, with taste and 
instinct exquisite, implies Shakespeare's defi- 
ciency in art as he listens to 

"sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, 
Warble his native wood-notes wild." 

Dryden honestly says of his idol : — 

" I cannot say he is everywhere alike ; were 
he so, I should do him injury to compare him 
with the greatest of mankind. He is many times 
flat, insipid ; his comic wit degenerating into 
clinches, his serious swelling into bombast." 

As compared with Jonson, this is Dryden's 
estimate of Shakespeare : — 

" The fatiltless Johnson equally writ well ; 

Shakespeare ma.de/azd^s, but then did more excel." 

Again this noble writer says : — 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 



39 



" Shakespeare, who many times has written 
better than any poet, in any language, is yet so 
far from writing wit always^ or expressing that 
wit according to the dignity of the subject, that 
he writes, in many places, below the dullest 
writer of ours, or any precedent age." 

Edward Phillips, the nephew of Milton, in 
his ^ Theatrum Poetarum,' 1675, says : — 

" Shakespeare, in spight of all his unfiled 
expressions, his rambling and indigested fancys, 
the laughter of the Critical, yet must be con- 
fessed a poet above many that go beyond him 
in Literature some degree." 

And again : — 

" From an Actor of Tragedies and Comedies 
he became a Maker; and such a Maker, that 
though some others may perhaps pretend to 
a more exact Decoru7n and cEcono7nie, especially 
in Tragedy, never any express'd a more lofty and 
tragic height ; never any represented nature 
more purely to the life, and where the polish- 
ments of Art are most wanting, as probably his 
Learning was not extraordinary, he pleaseth 
with a certain wz'/^and 7iaiive Elegance." 

Pope, with most excellent judgment, wrote 
in his preface : — 

" It must be owned, that with all these great 
excellencies, he has almost as great defects; 



40 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

and that as he has certainly written better, so 
he has perhaps written worse, than any other." 

Samuel Johnson made bold to ascribe cer- 
tain faults to Shakespeare, by saying : — 

" The style of Shakespeare was in itself un- 
grammatical, perplexed and obscure." 

The criticisms quoted above apply to the 
nonsense, the faulty style, the defective metre, 
and the occasional commonplace passages to 
be found in Shakespeare's works. 

From these criticisms the conclusion is to 
be drawn that, contrary to the opinion of the 
Primrose Criticism, Shakespeare wrote non- 
sense and indulged in defective metre. And 
this further conclusion is logical, that to reject 
the Shakespearian authorship of ' Richard III.' 
on the ground that it contains nonsense and 
defective metre, would warrant the rejection 
of nearly every play ascribed to Shakespeare. 
The faults of ^Richard III.' are not un- 
Shakespearian. And, with Professor Rich- 
ardson, all may admit that " this tragedy, 
like every work of Shakespeare, has many 
faults." 

It is further implied in the Primrose Criti- 
cism that as 'Richard III.' is without humor 
it lacks one of the infallible characteristics of 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 41 

Shakespearian method and genius. Perhaps 
no play of this original dramatist adheres more 
closely to the classical standard with regard to 
its tragical unity than 'Richard III.' It lacks, 
let it be admitted, the unclassical admixture of 
comedy. But the play is of such an intensely 
cruel and tragic nature that it could with less 
consistency than any other play admit of the 
introduction of a comic strain. Its very di- 
abolism seems to forbid any relief to the horror, 
or the admission of any ray of jest or clownish- 
ness into the damnable darkness. If, however, 
by the term " humor " we may include the idea 
of wit, sarcasm, cunning and adroit play of 
words, then, certainly, one of the greatest, if 
grimmest, humorists of Shakespeare's creation 
is Richard III. There are hnes in the first 
soliloquy that contain humor. Gloster's woo- 
ing of Lady Anne, even in the presence of the 
corpse of Henry VI., is not only most eloquent, 
but consummately witty, bordering at least on 
the humorous. The strawberry subterfuge by 
which the Bishop of Ely is politely invited 
out of the council in the Tower, is a cheerful 
incident, if nothing more. 

Nevertheless, it is true that this picture is 
very sparingly relieved of its sombre character 
by the comical or even by the humorous. 



42 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

This fact, however, cannot rob the tragedy of 
its Shakespearian character, which is deter- 
mined by its positive rather than by its nega- 
tive elements, by what it contains rather than 
by what it lacks. A few of the great actors 
have so studied this play as to find in it rays 
of light, and in their acting they have relieved 
the play of the monotonous horror by bring- 
ing out the wit and even humor which they 
found therein. Kemble, Cooke, and Kean in 
particular were credited with the abihty to 
find and to set forth these features of the dark 
tragedy. It was with difficulty that they 
succeeded. 

On what grounds the Primrose Criticism 
insinuates that ^Richard III.' reveals a lack 
of patriotism in its author it is difficult to de- 
termine. If to portray reckless, heartless, in- 
satiable ambition, a love of power which 
tramples underfoot the laws of God and so- 
ciety, — if to hold up to the universal gaze for 
everlasting execration 

" That foul defacer of God's handy-work ; 
That excellent grand tyrant of the earth," — 

if to record with dramatic force the diaboli- 
cal intrigues, and the final, just calamities 
and ruin of a royal assassin and red-handed 
usurper, — be unpatriotic, then Shakespeare 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 43 

has indeed most successfully and commend- 
ably proven himself of an unpatriotic spirit. If 
patriotism means simply loyalty to a " House " 
or an administration rather than to the coun- 
try, then of that narrow sort of patriotism 
Shakespeare, the author of '■ Richard III.,' 
was not largely and conspicuously possessed. 
But that great tragedy was written -by a pen 
which had been inspired with the loftiest pa- 
triotism, — a love of country and the rights of 
men. The spirit that wrote the play breathes 
in the patriotic prayer of Richmond : — 

" O, now, let Richmond and Elizabeth, 
The true succeeders of each royal house. 
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together ! 
And let their heirs (God, if thy will be so) 
Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace. 
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days ! 
Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord, 
That would reduce these bloody days again, 
And make poor England weep in streams of blood ! 
Let them not live to taste this land's increase, 
That would with treason wound this fair land's 



peace 



Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again ; 
That she may long live here, God say — Amen ! " 

Primrose Criticism insinuates that to admit 
the Shakespearian authorship of this play 
would be to accuse the poet of therein per- 
mitting his mind to remain '* at dead low-tide, 



44 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

and lay bare all its shallows and its ooze." It 
is difficult for one to understand Schiller's ad- 
miration of such a shallow and oozy- minded 
tragedy. And if these lines are at a poetic 
and dramatic " dead low- tide," what was 
" Marlowe's mighty line," when such a schol- 
arly critic as Chalmers, in turning from Mar- 
lowe's play, must say : — 

" Certain it is that when we open Shake- 
speare's Richard III. we seem to mount from 
the uniform flat, wherein we had been travelling 
with uncheered steps, to an exalted eminence, 
from whence we behold around us, an extensive 
country, diversified by hill and dale, refreshed 
by many waters, and traversed by roads, lead- 
ing to hospitable mansions : 

* Glos. Now is the winter of our discontent 
Made glorious summer by this sun of York.' " 

No " low-tide " performance here, to the 
mind of the Scotch antiquarian and critic ! 

All men have not been able to detect the 
shallows and ooze which the Primrose Criti- 
cism seems to find in ' Richard III.' Hazlitt 
had certainly seen virtues in this tragedy 
which escaped the eye of Peter Bell, for he 
wrote : — 

" The play itself is undoubtedly a very power- 
ful effusion of Shakespeare's genius. The 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 45 

groundwork of the character of Richard — that 
mixture of intellectual vigour with moral de- 
pravity, in which Shakespeare delighted to show 
his strength — gave full scope as well as temp- 
tation to the exercise of his imagination." 

Coleridge must have found great excellen- 
ces in this play; and his keen, critical eye 
must have overlooked the " shallows " and 
" ooze/' else he could not have written : — 

" Shakespeare here, as in all his great parts, 
develops in a tone of sublime morality the 
dreadful consequences of placing the moral in 
subordination to the mere intellectual being." 

Let it not be supposed that an attempt 
is here made to prove the superiority of 
* Richard III.' to all other Shakespearian pro- 
ductions. As a literary work it cannot hold 
rank with ^ Hamlet/ ' Othello/ ' Lear/ and 
many other plays of this poet. Some may 
even wonder, with Johnson, Steevens, and 
Malone, why it has been so universally ad- 
mired, without doubting its Shakespearian 
origin. 

Hazlitt pronounces 'Richard HI.' a play 
for the stage rather than for the study. 
Others criticise it for its inadaptability to the 
stage. Possibly the Gibber adaptation of the 
play was better calculated to produce theatri- 



46 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

cal effect than the original, but there can be 
no question that the ' Richard III.' of Shake- 
speare is the more perfect and admirable in 
the study. Indeed, the Gibber adaptation 
eliminates portions which, in the study and 
from the literary standpoint, are the finest 
portions of the play, and rank with the no- 
blest and most elegant poetic strains of 
Shakespeare. 

That which would be "dead low-tide," 
"shallows," "ooze," to the play-goer and to 
the actor, might be high-tide, ocean deeps, 
crystalline purity of philosophic thought and 
poetic form to the student and moralist. 

Let it be admitted that some of the scenes 
and dialogues would be tedious and devoid of 
good taste and exciting interest on the stage ; 
the same admission must be made touching 
many of Shakespeare's plays. If this fault 
is un-Shakespearian, surely there is hardly 
a purely Shakespearian play in existence. 
There are entire plays of Shakespeare which 
have never been popular on the stage, and 
quite a large number of them have entirely 
disappeared from the repertoire of the Shake- 
spearian actors. Who of this generation has 
witnessed a successful and popular perform- 
ance of 'Timon of Athens,' 'Pericles,' 'Ti- 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 47 

tus Andronicus,' '■ Cymbeline/ ' King John,' 
' Henry VI.,' ' Troilus and Cressida,' ' Measure 
for Measure ' ? 

But the drama is not to be judged and 
fashioned by the tastes and demands of the 
theatre alone. Doubtless many have agreed 
with Charles Lamb that Shakespeare cannot 
be acted, that the stage is not great enough 
for his dramatic creations. The theatre de- 
manded that the original tragedy of ' Richard 
III.' should be changed ; the change was 
made, and the play thereby gained popularity 
for the time being on the stage, but lost popu- 
larity in the study. 

Colley Gibber almost destroyed the literary 
identity of the great tragedy when in 1 700 he 
adapted it to the stage ; yet he made the char- 
acter of Richard, whose horrible identity he 
preserved, a great favorite with actors and 
play-goers. And though Garrick, Gooke, and 
Kean achieved fame in the performance of 
this mutilated play, who will say that Shake- 
speare, in revisiting "the glimpses of the 
moon," would be willing to adopt the " adap- 
tation" and applaud Gibber for his pains? 
Who will acknowledge from the standpoint of 
literary dramatic criticism that the Gibber 
adaptation is equal to the original drama? 



48 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Now the argument is this, that a dramatic 
composition may be of high excellence from 
a literary and intellectual standpoint which 
on the stage, from an actor's or the audi- 
tor's point, would prove too intricate, ob- 
scure, tame, or even revolting. Such a play, 
however, does not necessarily reveal the 
" shallows " and " ooze " and " dead low- 
tide " of its author's mind ; it may show the 
greater heights, depths, powers, and splendors 
of it. 

Astonishment increases when this new Prim- 
rose Criticism makes the remarkable discovery 
that 'Richard III." is devoid of eloquence, 
and is not therefore of Shakespearian origin. 
It must be a very uncommon taste that is 
deaf to the eloquence of Richard's soHloquies, 
of Clarence's dream, of Margaret's curses, of 
Richmond's orations and prayers. Did not 
Gloster woo Lady Anne most eloquently? 
What can exceed the beauty and pathos of 
Edward's eulogy of his brother? 

" K. Edw. Have I a tongue to doom my brother's 
death, 
And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave? 
My brother kill'd no man, his fault was thought, 
And yet his punishment was bitter death. 
Who sued to me for him ? who, in my wrath, 
Kneel'd at my feet, and bade me be advis'd.^ 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 49 

Who spoke of brotherhood ? who spoke of love ? 
Who told me, how the poor soul did forsake 
The mighty Warwick, and did fight for me ? 
Who told me, in the field at Tewksbury, 
When Oxford had me down, he rescu'd me, 
And said, Dear brother, live, and be a king? 
Who told me, when we both lay in the field, 
Frozen almost to death, how he did lap me 
Even in his garments ; and did give himself, 
All thin and naked, to the numb-cold night ? ' 
All this from my remembrance brutish wrath 
Sinfully pluck'd, and not a man of you 
Had so much grace to put it in my mind. 
But when your carters or your waiting-vassals 
Have done a drunken slaughter, and defac'd 
The precious image of our dear Redeemer, 
You straight are on your knees for pardon, pardon; 
And I, unjustly too, must grant it you : — 
But for my brother, not a man would speak, — 
Nor I (ungracious) speak unto myself 
For him, poor soul. — The proudest of you all 
Have been beholden to him in his life ; 
Yet none of you would once plead for his life. — 
O God! I fear, thy justice will take hold 
On me, and you, and mine, and yours, for this. — 
Come, Hastings, help me to my closet. O, poor 
Clarence ! " 

Is such an eloquence unworthy of Shake- 
speare's pen? 

In reading Queen Ehzabeth's farewell to 
the Tower which holds ''those tender babes," 
and in reading Tyrrel's description of the 
"ruthless butchery," one joins with Hazhtt in 

4 



50 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

pronouncing them "some of those wonder- 
ful bursts of feeling, done to the life, to the 
very height of fancy and nature, which our 
Shakespeare alone could give." 

Has ever an actor in the noble character of 
Richmond doubted that he was pronoun- 
cing an eloquence equal to that of Henry V. 
before Harfleur, when on famous Bosworth 
field he harangued his troops, closing with 
the spirited and thrilling words : — 

" Then, in the name of God, and all these rights, 
Advance your standards, draw your willing swords : 
For me, the ransom of my. bold attempt 
Shall be this cold corpse on the earth's cold face ; 
But if I thrive, the gain of my attempt 
The least of you shall share his part thereof. 
Sound, drums and trumpets, boldly and cheerfully ; 
God, and Saint George ! Richmond, and victory ! " 

Not only the actions, but the very words of 
Richard on that fatal field were eloquent : — 

** Fight, gentlemen of England ! fight, bold yeomen ! 
Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head ! 
Spur your proud horses hard, and ride in blood ; 
Amaze the welkin with your broken staves ! " 

" A thousand hearts are great within my bosom : 
Advance our standards, set upon our foes ; 
Our ancient word of courage, fair Saint George, 
Inspire us with the spleen of fiery dragons 1 
Upon them ! Victory sits on our helms." 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 51 

As Garrick acted the part, throwing into it 
the highest spirit of gallantry, what stirring 
eloquence was Richard's in the scene : — 

" K. Rich. A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a 

horse ! 
Catesby. Withdraw, my lord, I '11 help you to a 

horse. 
K. Rich. Slave, I have set my life upon a cast, 
And I will stand the hazard of the die ; 
I think, there be six Richmonds in the field ; 
Five have I slain to-day, instead of him : — 
A horse ! a horse ! my kingdom for a horse ! " 

If eloquence be the test, 'Richard III.' is 
Shakespeare's. 

The Primrose Criticism cannot suppress its 
mirth at the appearance of the ghosts on 
Bosworth field, and intimates that the scene 
is unworthy of Shakespeare, and hence was 
not his creation. Why Peter Bell does not 
laugh at the whole tribe of dramatic ghosts 
and every other sort of ghosts, is not apparent. 

The ghosts in ' Hamlet,' ' Macbeth,' and 
' Julius Csesar ' are as open to criticism, and 
are as provocative of mirth as the ghosts in 
' Richard III.' Why Banquo's ghost should 
appear to Macbeth, and the ghost of the 
Royal Dane to Hamlet, and the ghost of 
Caesar to Brutus, without challenging the 



52 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

criticism of Peter Bell, while the appearance 
of the ghosts of Richard's victims on Bos- 
worth field should be thought laughable, is 
perhaps unworthy of serious inquiry. Whether 
any ghost scene be pleasing or not to the 
reader of this age, there is a seriousness of 
mind in which to study the dramatic re- 
quirements and necessities of an earlier age, 
which the Primrose Criticism does not seem 
to cultivate. There is at least a philosophical 
dignity, which should ever accompany criti- 
cism, to be found in Schlegel's remarks 
on the ghost scene in ' Richard III.' In 
explanation of Richard's heroic death, he 
says : — 

" He fights at last against Richmond like a 
desperado, and dies the honorable death of a 
hero on the field of battle. Shakespeare could 
not change this historical issue, and yet it is by 
no means satisfactory to our moral feelings, as 
Lessing, when speaking of a German play on 
the same subject, has very judiciously remarked. 
How has Shakespeare solved this difficulty? 
By a wonderful invention he opens a prospect 
into the other world, and shows us Richard in 
his last moments already branded with the stamp 
of reprobation. We see Richard and Rich- 
mond in the night before the battle sleeping in 
their tents : the spirits of the murdered victims 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 53 

of the tyrant ascend in succession, and pour 
out their curses against him, and their bless- 
ings on his adversary. These apparitions are 
properly but the dreams of the two generals 
represented visibly. It is no doubt contrary 
to probability that their tents should only be 
separated by so small a space ; but Shake- 
speare could reckon on poetical spectators who 
were ready to take the breadth of the stage for 
the distance between two hostile camps, if for 
such indulgence they were to be recompensed 
by beauties of so sublime a nature as this series 
of spectres and Richard's awakening soliloquy. 
The catastrophe of Richard the Third is, in 
respect to the external event, very like that 
of Macbeth ; we have only to compare the 
thorough difference of handling them to be con- 
vinced that Shakespeare has most accurately 
observed poetical justice in the genuine sense 
of the word, that is, as signifying the relation 
of an invisible blessing or curse which hangs 
over human sentiments and actions." 

It is certainly refreshing to turn from the 
Primrose sneer to such a philosophical criti- 
cism as this, which, if it serve no other end, 
may suggest the value of German seriousness 
above much American flippancy. 

But why should Shakespeare be ridiculed 
for dramatizing tradition and history? The 
subject matter of the ghost scene was not 



54 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

invented by Shakespeare. The dramatist 
could not eliminate that part of Richard's 
experience. The historians told it all before 
the poet adapted it to the stage. The horri- 
ble dreams, the appearance of ghosts and 
even devils to the tormented mind of Richard 
on the eve of battle, are in the records. Let 
the Primrose Criticism attempt to dramatize 
this experience less ludicrously \ let it under- 
take to do it more grandly and impressively. 

Any criticism that overlooks the principal 
character of a drama must be logically defec- 
tive if not scientifically worthless, however 
charmingly and elegantly it may be presented. 
Where criticism contents itself with pointing 
out the mote that dances in the beam of 
light, the withered leaf that hangs on the 
branch of the oak, the broken feather that 
still clings to the pinion of the eagle, the 
stain on the sail of the noble ship, the spot 
on the face of the glorious sun, the justice 
of the method may be seriously questioned. 
One of the most remarkable exhibitions of 
criticism ever witnessed was the recent nota- 
ble Primrose study of the play of ^ Rich- 
ard III.' with Richard left out. Defective 
metre ; poverty of style ; lack of eloquence, 
humor, and patriotism ; superfluity of ghost ; 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 55 

intellectual " dead low-tide," " shallows," 
*'ooze;" and deliberate nonsense, — were 
dwelt upon with elegance and subtlety of 
assertion ; but what of the character Rich- 
ard III.? Nothing, absolutely nothing ! And 
yet there is no other play of Shakespearian 
authorship that is so completely concentrated 
in one character as this. There is no other char- 
acter that has become popular for the stage in 
which all the interests of the tragedy in which 
it is cast centre so completely. The play of 
' Richard III.' leaves stamped upon the ima- 
gination and memory but one impression — 
Richard. 

In a study of Shakespeare's other tragedies 
we find, for instance, that Hamlet, Othello, 
and Macbeth severally share with one or two 
other characters the interest of the play in 
which they appear. But Richard is himself 
alone. He is the whole play. And as he 
would not share the honors of the kingdom 
with another, but tyrannically demanded all 
and all the power usurped; so will he not 
share the interest of a dramatic plot with an- 
other : the play is his, the stage is his, as the 
kingdom is his alone. " Richard is the soul, 
or rather the dsemon, of the whole tragedy." 
However defective the metre, however lame 



56 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

the style, however tame the dialogue in cer- 
tain parts, however dreary and even revolting 
some of the events and scenes in this tragedy, 
there stands a character which no pen but 
Shakespeare's could have delineated. 

The most characteristic quality of Shake- 
speare's plays is the wonderful, unparalleled 
delineation of character to be found in them. 
Shakespeare was pre-eminent in his power 
'^ to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature ; 
to show virtue her own feature, scorn her 
own image, and the very age and body of the 
time his form and pressure." It is not the 
metre of the tragedy of ' Hamlet ' that distin- 
guishes it, and secures the immortality of its 
popularity, but the delineation of the char- 
acter of Hamlet. It is not the absence of 
"nonsense," but the character of Shylock, 
that keeps up the world's interest in the 
^ Merchant of Venice.' It is not the literary 
style of the play of ^ King Lear ' that has 
placed it above all other modern tragedies ; 
that is accomplished by the character of Lear. 
Neither the " patriotism " nor the " humor " 
of ^ Macbeth,' but the character of Macbeth 
himself, as therein set forth, makes the trag- 
edy great in literature and on the stage. So 
is it with the tragedy of ' Richard III. j ' it is 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 57 

great because therein the characterization of 
Richard is great. No dramatic person that 
Shakespeare's mighty pen ever drew is more 
worthy of his genius. No character has won 
greater fame and popularity on the stage. 
No character, with the possible exception of 
Lear, demands in its representation the exer- 
cise of greater histrionic genius. There have 
been but four great Richards on the English 
stage, and they are the acknowledged greatest 
geniuses of the stage. If another hand than 
Shakespeare's drew this wonderful character, 
then let not Greene, Marlowe, Jonson, or 
Fletcher share the fame of the " Bard of 
Avon," but let the unknown author and crea- 
tor of 'Richard III.' be partner in the pos- 
session of the greatest fame in dramatic 
literature. 

Are we certain that Swift ^\Tote the ' Tale 
of a Tub,' and Scott 'The Antiquary,' be- 
cause nobody else could do it? Then Shake- 
speare drew the dramatic character of Richard 
III. because nobody else could do it. Yes, 
" there is a gait that marks the mind as well 
as the body ; " and if not in the metre nor 
the literary style, in the great, impressive, ter- 
rible character of Richard III. may be de- 
tected the infallible, unmistakable mental gait 



58 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

of Shakespeare. It is submitted whether the 
Shakespearian character of any play in ques- 
sion is not to be determined rather from a 
study of the persons than of the prosody of 
the play. 

Primrose Criticism will condescendingly ad- 
mit that Shakespeare may have adapted the 
play to the stage, " making additions some- 
times longer, sometimes shorter." But let it 
be noticed that the true author of the original 
play is not mentioned. No attempt is made 
to prove that the play had an existence in lit- 
erature before 1597, when Shakespeare pub- 
lished it. Primrose Criticism is not wanting 
in antiquarian knowledge ; let it therefore 
mention for the world's information just the 
play, with its title, date of publication, author's 
name, and dramatic plan, which Shakespeare 
laid his cunning if not thievish hand upon, 
and appropriated to himself Will Primrose 
Criticism claim that it was Marlowe's play? 
or "A Tragical Report of King Richard, a 
Ballad," published in 1586? If so, there is 
an opportunity for candid comparison and 
argument. 

George Steevens tells us — what many an 
antiquarian well knows — that several dramas 
on the present subject had been written 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 59 

before Shakespeare attempted it. If Shake- 
speare's attempt was not a new, an original, 
and a genuine production, then, in the name 
of critical fairness, it is unjust to charge 
Shakespeare with literary theft until it has 
been proven who else did write the play, or 
that it had a previous existence. 

With all the poems and plays on this sub- 
ject before them, after careful study and com- 
parison, no editor, commentator, antiquarian, 
or critic has been able to find the original 
play or poem which Primrose Criticism ac- 
cuses Shakespeare of stealing, revamping, and 
publishing in his own name. Common sense 
and common fairness suggest that there never 
existed such a play or poem, and that, until 
it is produced, Shakespeare is entitled to the 
honor and glory of having been the author of 
'Richard III.' 

That Shakespeare made his honey from the 
flowers that were blooming about him ; that 
he did not create the silk and gold which he 
wove into the rich tapestries of his fancy; 
that he hewed from existing quarries the 
blocks out of which he constructed his gor- 
geous dramatic palaces, will be admitted. 
Not a play of his unquestioned authorship 
exists that does not bear proofs of his indebt- 



6o RICHARD THE THIRD. 

edness to poets, historians, roman cists, and 
translators, of his own and of preceding times. 
It is well known that there were already in 
existence and in common circulation the 
stories, poems, and chronicles which inspired 
or suggested the plots of Shakespeare's great- 
est plays. The stories of ' Hamlet,' ' Mer- 
chant of Venice,' 'Romeo and Juliet,' 'King 
Lear,' ' Macbeth,' ' Othello,' etc., were not 
original with Shakespeare ; they were only 
modified and dramatized by him. This is 
the work and mission of the dramatist. In 
such a sense the tragedy of ' Richard III.' 
was a dramatization of an historical time and 
person. 

For the historical basis of this tragedy 
Shakespeare depended upon others. He did 
not evolve his historical plays from his inter- 
nal consciousness. That he received sugges- 
tions from poets, novehsts, and dramatists 
who had written upon the same subject, is as 
probable as that he obtained necessary infor- 
mation from sober and learned historians. 
But detecting Plutarch, Boccaccio, Sir Thomas 
More, HoHnshed, Hall, Grafton, Painter, 
Florio, and other authors and translators, in 
the dramatic works of Shakespeare does not 
justify the insinuation that he was a plagiarist. 



THE PRIMROSE CRITICISM. 6 1 

Nor will a scientific criticism attempt on 
such ground to base an argument for 
the un-Shakespearian character and style of 

* Richard III.' 

Having noticed what seem to be some of 
the defects of the Primrose Criticism in its 
discussion of the Shakespearian authorship of 

* Richard HI.' it may not be unprofitable for 
us to turn to a short study of the sources 
from which Shakespeare drew the subject- 
matter of his tragedy. 




PART II. 
» 

THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III, 



" My villainy they have upon record." 



i'--* t..>" '^ 




THE HISTORICAL BASIS OF 
RICHARD III. 




OETHE placed Shakespeare before 
all other poets for power of invention 
and for variety and originality of 
characterization. Yet he knew that the dram- 
atist seldom, if ever, invented the subject 
matter of his plays. The jealousy of Greene 
has not biassed the judgment of fair-minded 
critics in determining Shakespeare's merit for 
originality. The author of ' Groats-worth of 
Wit ' assailed Shakespeare after this fashion : 

" There is an upstart Crow, beautified with 
our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt 
ill a Players hide, supposes he is well able to 
bombast out a blanke verse as the best of you : 
and being an absolute Johannes factotum is in 
his owne conceit the onely Shake-scene in a 
countrie. O, that I might entreate your rare wits 

5 



66 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

to be employed in more profitable courses : and 
let those Apes imitate your past excellence, and 
never more acquaint them with your admired 
inventions." 

It would take more than a groat's worth 
of such wit to convince the world that the 
* sweet Swan of Avon/ with borrowed or with 
stolen wings, made 

"... those flights upon the banks of Thames 
That so did take Eliza and our James." 

Few have had the temerity to charge Shake- 
speare with aping the excellences of superior 
wits. It was not necessary for that 

" Soule of the Age " 

to depend upon the invention or originality 
of any other genius of his time ; 

" Nature her selfe was proud of his designs, 
And joy'd to weare the dressing of his lines ! " 

Though Shakespeare, in common with all 
great dramatic poets, has borrowed the foun- 
dation material of his plays from history, fable, 
classic lore, and romance, yet his power of 
invention and his originality of genius are not 
to be questioned. His invention is shown, 
not in the creation of the figures of his plays, 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF ' RICHARD IIi: 67 

but in the elevation and transformation of 
them into poetic and dramatic characters. 
This, to the philosophical mind of Ulrici, " is 
proof of greater force and intensity of genius, 
greater truth and depth of intellect, than if he 
had himself invented the subject matter of his 
dramas." 

For the subject matter of the historical 
tragedy of ' Richard III.,' Shakespeare was 
indebted to several sources, — historical and 
poetical. The principal sources were Holin- 
shed, Grafton, Hall, Sir Thomas More, Mar- 
lowe, ' The True Tragedy of Richard III.,' 
and the * Mirour for Magistrates.' If, as Wal- 
pole claims, the Shakespearian ' Richard ' is 
not true to historical facts, then the blame of 
it must lie at the door of the historian rather 
than of the dramatist. It is beyond question, 
that the world bases its conception of Richard's 
character on Shakespeare's play, and that the 
dramatist has done more than any other to 
prejudice the world's opinion to the theory of 
the unmitigated diabolism of this infamous 
tyrant and usurper. But it will be found that 
the historians approach Shakespeare in the 
darkness of their representations ; they ap- 
proach him as nearly as sober, dispassionate 
history may approach impassioned drama. 



68 RICHARD THE THIRD, 

The physical deformities of Richard, on 
which the poet makes him frequently solilo- 
quize, both in ^ Henry VI.' and ' Richard III.,' 
are minutely described by the historians. 
Several of the obscure or seemingly trifling 
passages of the play are suggested by Holin- 
shed and More, and they appear in the play 
in almost the identical language of the histo- 
rians. In illustration of these points reference 
is now made to the corresponding passages 
and descriptions found in the play, and the 
historical authorities on which the drama is 
based. 

In the first soliloquy of Richard occur the 
lines : — 

" But I, — that am not shap'd for sportive tricks, 
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass ; 
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's maj- 
esty, 
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ; 
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion, 
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, 
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time 
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, 
And that so lamely and unfashionable, 
That dogs bark at me, as I halt by them ; — 
Why I, in this weak piping time of peace, 
Have no delight to pass away the time ; 
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun. 
And descant on mine own deformity." 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD IW 69 

After his wooing of Lady Anne he again 
refers to his bodily deformity : — 

• " And will she yet abase her eyes on me, 

That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince, 
And made her widow to a woful bed ? 
On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety ? 
On me, that halt, and am mis-shapen thus ? " 

Lady Anne refers to Richard's physical 
condition when she cries: — 

" Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity." 

Again, spitting upon him and wishing her 
spittle were poison, she says : — 

" Never hung poison on a fouler toad. 
Out of my sight ! thou dost infect mine eyes." 

Queen Margaret's bitter curse contained 
the words : — 

" Thou elvish-mark'd, abortive, rooting hog ! 
Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity 
The slave of nature, and the son of hell ! 
Thou slander of thy mother's heavy womb I 
Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins I 
Thou rag of honour ! " 

Again she cries : — 
" Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him." 

In the third part of ^ Henry VI.,' Gloster 
soliloquizes : — 



70 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

" Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb ; 
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws, 
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe 
To shrink mine arm up like a wither'd shrub ; 
To make an envious mountain on my back, 
Where sits deformity to mock my body ; 
To shape my legs of an unequal size ; 
To disproportion me in every part, 
Like to a chaos, or an unlick'd bear-whelp, 
That carries no impression like the dam." 

In the eyes of King Henry, Gloster was 

" an indigest deformed lump." 

There seems to be no exaggeration of Rich- 
ard's physical deformities in Shakespeare's 
descriptions. The historian gives him no 
better aspect than the dramatist./ The ' His- 
tory of King Richard the Third/ written by 
Master Thomas More about the year 15 13, 
contains the following description of Richard, 
in comparing him with his brothers Edward 
and Clarence : — 

" Richarde the third sonne, of whom we 
nowe entreate, was in witte and courage egall 
with either of them, in bodye and prowesse 
farre under them bothe, little of stature, ill 
fetured of limmes, croke backed, his left shoul- 
der much higher than his right, hard favoured 
of visage." 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 71 

Holinshed drew largely upon Sir Thomas 
More and Grafton for his material. Shake- 
speare obtained his information directly from 
Holinshed rather than from More or Grafton. 
From the second edition of Holinshed's 
Chronicles, published in 1586, the following 
description of Richard is transcribed : — 

"As he was small and little of stature, so was 
he of bodie greatlie deformed; the one shoulder 
higher than the other; his face was small, but 
his countenance cruell, and such, that at the 
first aspect a man would judge it to savour and 
smell of malice, fraud, and deceit. 

" When he stood musing, he would bite and 
chew busilie his nether lip ; as who said that 
his fierce nature in his cruell bodie alwaies 
chafed, stirred and was ever unquiet." 

So much for Shakespeare's historical accu- 
racy in his description of Richard's physical 
defects. 

When Shakespeare makes Richard say, — 

" I am determined to prove a villain," 

and in * Henry VI.' puts into his mouth the 
terrible self-imprecation, — 

" Then since the heavens have shap'd my body so, 
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it," 



72 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

then draws a picture of Richard which car- 
ries out his determination into blackest deeds 
of villany and most hellish crookedness of 
mind, there is justification for it all in the 
historic records. 

Sir Thomas More represents Richard's 
moral nature to be as deformed as his phys- 
ical : — 

" He was malicious, wrathfull, envious, and 
from afore his birth ever f orwarde. , . . Hee was 
close and secrete, a deepe dissimuler, lowlye of 
counteynaunce, arrogant of heart, outwardly 
coumpinable where he inwardly hated, not let- 
ting to kisse whome hee thoughte to kyll : dis- 
pitious and cruell, not for evill will alway, but 
after for ambicion, and either for the suretie or 
encrease of his estate. Frende and foo was 
muche what indifferent, where his advauntage 
grew, he spared no mans deathe, whose life 
withstoode his purpose." 

Holinshed wrote in the same strain : — 

" Now when his death was knowne, few la- 
mented, and manie rejoiced. The proud brag- 
ging white bore (which was his badge) was 
violentlie rased and plucked downe from everie 
signe and place where it might be espied : so ill 
was his life, that men wished the memorie of 
him to be buried with his carren corps. He 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 73 

reigned two yeers, two moneths and one daie 
(too long by six and twentie months, and foure 
and twentie houres in most mens opinions, to 
whome his name and presence was as sweet and 
delectable, as his dooings princelie and his per- 
son amiable). . . . The dagger which he ware, 
he would (when he studied) with his hand plucke 
up and downe in the sheath to the midst, never 
drawing it fullie out : he was of a readie, preg- 
nant, and quicke wit, wilie to feine, and apt to 
dissemble : he had a proud mind, and an arro- 
gant stomach, the which accompanied him even 
to his death, rather choosing to suffer the same 
by dint of sword, than being forsaken and left 
helplesse of his unfaithfull companions, to pre- 
serve by cowardlie flight such a fraile and un- 
certaine life, which by malice, sicknesse, or 
condigne punishment was like shortlie to come 
to confusion. Thus ended this prince his mor- 
tall life with infamie and dishonor, which never 
preferred fame or honestie before ambition, 
tyrannic and mischiefe." 

In the above estimate of Richard's charac- 
ter, Holinshed has quoted freely from Grafton, 
an earlier chronicler. 

It is singular that Malone should have been 
of the opinion that Shakespeare was not in- 
debted to ' The Mirour for Magistrates ' in 
the composition of this tragedy. He says : 
"The Legend of King Richard III., by 



74 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Francis Seagars, was printed in the first edi- 
tion of The Mirrour for Magistrates, 1559, 
and in that of 1575 and 1587; but Shake- 
speare does not appear to be indebted to it. 
In a subsequent edition of that book printed 
in 1 6 10 the old legend was omitted, and a 
new one inserted by Richard Niccols, who 
has very freely copied the play before us." 
A perusal of the edition of * The Mirour for 
Magistrates ' published in 1587, ten years 
before Shakespeare's play was published, will 
reveal almost as much material for a tragedy 
of ' Richard III.' as may be found in More, 
Grafton, or Holinshed. It is sufficient to 
quote from the table of contents to show how 
fully the reign of Richard III. is therein 
treated. The work contains poems under 
the following titles : — 

" 60. How King Henry the Sixt, a vertuous 
Prince, was after many other miseryes, cruelly 
murdered in the Tower of London, the 22. of 
May. Anno. 1471. 

"61. How George Plantagenet, thyrd sonne 
of the Duke of Yorke, was by his brother King 
Edward wrongfully imprysoned, and by his 
brother Richard miserably murdered, the 11. 
of January. Anno 1478. 

*'64. How the Lord Hastings was betrayed 
by trusting too much to his evill Councellour 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF ' RICHARD III: 75 

Catesby, and villanously murdered in the Towre 
of London, by Richard Duke of Glocester, the 
13. of June. Anno 1483. 

" 66. The complaynt of Henry Stafford, Duke 
of Buckingham. 

^'■6'j. How Collingbourne was cruelly exe- 
cuted for making a foolish rime. 

"68. How Richard Plantagenet Duke of 
Glocester, murdered his brothers children, 
usurping the Crowne : and in the 3. yeare of 
his raigne, was most worthely deprived of life 
and Kingdome in Basworth plaine, by Henry 
Earle of Richmond, after called King Henry 
the Seaventh : the 22. of August. 1485. 

" 73. How Shores wife. King Edward the 
fourths concubine, was by King Richard de- 
spoyled of all her goods, and forced to doe open 
penaunce." 

Here would seem to be a rich field of 
resources for the dramatist, as all the per- 
sons figuring in the poems mentioned above 
are to be found in Shakespeare's tragedy of 
'Richard HI.' 

In these poems the same character is given 
to Richard that may be found in More, 
Grafton, Holinshead, and Shakespeare. 

In the poem on Lord Rivers occur the 
lines : — 

" The Duke of Glocester that incarnate devill 
Confedred with the Duke of Buckingham, 



76 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

With eke Lord Hastings, hasty both to evill 
To meete the King in mourning habit came, 
(A cruell Wolfe though clothed like a Lambe.) " 

In the poem on ' The complaynt of Henry 
Stafford, Duke of Buckingham/ that con- 
spirator is made to say : — 

" For having rule and riches in our hand 
Who durst gaynesay the thing that wee averd ? 
Will was wisedome, our lust for law did stand. 
In sort so straunge, that who was not afeard. 
When hee the sounde but of King Richard heard ? 
So hatefull waxt the hearing of his name, 
That you may deeme the residue of the same. 

So cruell seemde this Richard third to mee, 
That loe myselfe now loathde his cruelty." 

The poem on ' Richard Plantagenet, Duke 
of Glocester/ is prefaced with the remark of 
the supposititious story-teller : — 

" I have here King Richards tragedy. . . . 
For the better understanding whereof, imagine 
that you see him tormented with Dives in the 
deepe pit of Hell, and thence howHng this 
which followeth. 

' What heart so hard, but doth abhorre to heare 
The ruf ull raigne of me the third Richard ? ' " etc. 

The poem represents Richard as confess- 
ing his cruelties; acknowledging that he 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 77 

"right did not regard," that in him *' trust 
turned to treason," and 

*' Desire of a Kingdom forgetteth all kindred." 

He says : — 

" For right through might I cruelly defaced." 

His crimes, he admits, brought the curses 
of men and God upon him, — 

" For which I was abhorred both of yong and olde, 
But as the deede was odious in sight of God and 

man, 
So shame and destruction in the end I wan." 

At the close of the poem the reader of it 
is made to say : — 

" When I had read this, we had much talke 
about it. For it was thought not vehement 
enough for so violent a man as King Richard 
had been." 

In defending the uncertain and broken 
metre of the poem, the reader says : — 

" It is not meete that so disorderly and un- 
naturall a man as King Richard was, should 
observe any metricall order in his talke : which 
notwithstanding in many places of his oration 
is very well kepte : it shall passe therefore even 
as it is though too good for so evill a person." 



78 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

/Thus, in all these old authors, the villa- 
nous, diabolical character of Richard is set 
forth with most vigorous language. 

Shakespeare seems completely justified in 
painting his dramatic portrait with the darkest 
colors, and on the authority of the historians 
he holds, "as 't were, the mirrour up to 
nature." 

History justifies the bitter warning of Queen 
Margaret : -— 

" O Buckingham, beware of yonder dog ; 
Look, when he fawns, he bites ; and when he bites. 
His venom tooth will rankle to the death : 
Have not to do with him, beware of him ; 
Sin, death, and hell, have set their marks on him; 
And all their ministers attend on him." 

Richard's mother, the Duchess of York, was 
historically justified in heaping upon the head 
of her cruel son the following accusations : — 

*' thou know'st it well, 

Thou cam'st on earth to make the earth my hell. 
A grievous burden was thy birth to me ; 
Tetchy and wayward was thy infancy ; 
Thy school-days frightful, desperate, wild and 

furious ; 
Thy prime of manhood, daring, bold, and venturous ; 
Thy age confirm'd, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody, 
More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred : 
What comfortable hour canst thou name, 
That ever grac'd me in thy company ? " 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 79 

The very conscience of Richard, as Shake- 
speare represents it, accords with tlie verdict 
of history : — 

" My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale, 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree ; 
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ; 
All several sins, all us'd in each degree. 
Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty! guilty!" 

Richmond's estimate of Richard is that of 
history : — 

" A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ; 
One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd ; 
One that made means to come by what he hath. 
And slaughter'd those that were the means to 

help him ; 
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil 
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ; 
One that hath ever been God's enemy." 

It must appear conclusive that Shakespeare 
did not depart from history in depicting the 
character of Richard III., but that in the 
darkest, most diabolical aspect of it he was 
supported by truth and fact. 

It is interesting to trace to their sources 
the obscure references and seemingly far- 
fetched incidents which appear quite fre- 



8o RICHARD THE THIRD. 

quently in Shakespeare's lines, and have an 
historical basis. 

In Richard's first soliloquy .reference is 
made to a certain prophecy : — 

" And, if King Edward be as true and just, 
As I am subtle, false, and treacherous, 
This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up 
About a prophecy, which says — that G 
Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be. 
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul ! here Clarence 
comes. 

{Enter CLARENCE, guarded, with Brakenbury.) 

Brother, good day : What means this armed guard, 
That waits upon your grace ? 

Clar. His majesty. 

Tendering my person's safety, hath appointed 
This conduct to convey me to the Tower. 

Glos. Upon what cause ? 

Clar. Because my name is — George. 

Glos. Alack, my lord, that fault is none of yours ; 
He should, for that, commit your godfathers : — 
O, belike, his majesty hath some intent, 
That you shall be new christen'd in the Tower. 
But what 's the matter, Clarence ? may I know .'' 

Clar. Yea, Richard, when I know ; for, I protest, 
As yet I do not : But, as I can learn, 
He hearkens after prophecies, and dreams ; 
And from the cross-row plucks the letter G, 
And says — a wizard told him, that by G 
His issue disinherited should be ; 
And, for my name of George begins with G, 
It follows in his thought, that I am he. 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 8 1 

These, as I learn, and such like toys as these. 
Have mov'd his highness to commit me now." 

In ' The Mirour for Magistrates ' may be 
found these lines, put mto the mouth of the 
Duke of Clarence : — 

" For by his Qvieene two Princelyke sonnes he had, 
Borne to be punisht for their parents synne : 
Whose Fortunes balked made the father sad, 
Such wofull haps were found to be therein : 
Which to avouch, writ in a rotten skin 
A prophesie was found, which sayd a G, 
Of Edwards children should destruction bee. 

" Mee to bee G, because my name was George 
My brother thought, and therefore did mee hate. 
But woe be to the wicked heads that forge 
Such doubtfull dreames to breede unkinde debate : 
For God, a Gleve, a Gibbet, Grate, or Gate, 
A Gray, a Griffeth, or a Gregory, 
As well as George are written with a G." 

In the poem on Lord Rivers, in the same 
book, reference is made to this prophecy, but 
with a different interpretation. 

" Sir Thomas Vaughan chafing cryed still : 
This tyrant Glocester is the gracelesse G 
That will his brothers children beastly kyll." 

Holinshed mentions this prophecy in his 
' Life of Edward IV. : ' — 

" Some have reported, that the cause of this 
noble mans death rose of a foolish prophesie, 

6 



82 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

which was, that after K. Edward one should 
reigne, whose first letter of his name should be 
a G. Wherewith the king and queene were 
sore troubled, and began to conceive a greevous 
grudge against the duke and could not be in 
quiet till they had brought him to his end. And 
as the divell is woont to incumber the minds 
of men which delite in such divehsh fantasies, 
they said afterward, that that prophesie lost not 
his effect, when after king Edward, Glocester 
usurped his kingdome." 

In the remarkable dialogue of the wooing 
scene between Lady Anne and Gloster, point- 
ing to the corpse of Henry VI., Anne cries : 

"O, gentlemen, see, see ! dead Henry's wounds 
Open their congeal'd mouths, and bleed afresh ! 
Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity ; 
For 't is thy presence that exhales this blood 
From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells ; 
Thy deed, inhuman and unnatural, 
Provokes this deluge most unnatural." 

This incident in the drama is based not 
only on the superstition that it was supposed 
the wounds of the victim bled afresh at the 
approach of the murderer, but also upon this 
record found in Holinshed's Chronicle : — 

"The dead corps on the Ascension even was 
conveied with billes and glaves pompouslie (if 
you will call that a funerall pompe) from the 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III.' St, 

Tower to the church of saint Paule, and there 
laid on a beire or coffen barefaced, the same in 
presence of the beholders did bleed ; where it 
rested the space of one whole dale. From 
thence he was caried to the Black-friers, and 
bled there likewise : and on the next daie after, 
it was conveied in a boat, without priest or 
Gierke, torch or taper, singing or saieng, unto 
the monasterie of Chertsie, distant from London 
fifteene miles, and there was it first buried." 

In Act II. Scene 3, a citizen is made to 
cry,— 

*' Woe to that land that 's govern'd by a child ! " 

Sir Thomas More records these words in 
the oration of the Duke of Buckingham in the 
"yeld hall in London." Buckingham is ha- 
ranguing the people in the interest of Richard, 
and dwelling upon his merits for the Jiigh 
office which he seeks, — 

" Which roume I warne you well is no childes 
office. And that the greate wise manne well per- 
ceived. When hee sayde : Veh regno citjus rex 
puer est. Woe is that Realme, that hathe a 
chylde to theyre Kynge." 

Reference is here made to Ecclesiastes 
X. 16 : — 

"Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a 
child." 



84 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Shakespeare, however, must have found 
this thought in More's ' Life of Richard III.,' 
or in Hohnshed, who has transcribed the 
same oration from More or Hall into his own 
* Life of Edward V.' 

At a council held in the Tower (Act IIL 
Scene 4) there are present Buckingham, Stan- 
ley, Hastings, the Bishop of Ely, Catesby, 
Lovel, Gloster, and others. For some un- 
known reason Gloster sends the Bishop of 
Ely from the Council on a very singular er- 
rand in these words : — 

" Glos. My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, 
I saw good strawberries in your garden there ; 
I do beseech you send for some of them. 

Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart." 

The Bishop retires, and after a short time 
re-enters with, — 

" Where is my lord protector ? I have sent for 
these strawberries." 

There seems to be very little, if any, sense 
in this strawberry incident, yet it was not 
invented by Shakespeare. It occurs in More 
and Holinshed in the following language : — 

"These lordes so syting togyther comoning 
of thys matter, the protectour came in among 
them, fyrst aboute IX. of the clock, saluting 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 85 

them curtesly, and excusying himself that he 
had ben from them so long, saieng merely that 
he had bene a slepe that day. And after a little 
talking with them, he sayd unto the Bishop of 
Elye : My lord, you have very good strawberies 
at your gardayne in Holberne, I require you 
let us have a messe of them. Gladly my lord 
quod he, woulde god I had some better thing 
as redy to your pleasure as that. And ther- 
with in al the hast he sent hys servant for a 
messe of strawberies." 

Gloster withdraws from the Council for 
about an hour and returns. As he re-enters 
the Council with Buckingham the following 
dialogue takes place : — 

" Glos. I pray you all, tell me what they deserve, 
That do conspire my death with devilish plots 
Of damned witchcraft ; and that have prevail'd 
Upon my body with their hellish charms ? 

Hast. The tender love I bear your grace, my lord, 
Makes me most forward in this noble presence 
To doom the offenders : Whosoe'er they be, 
I say, my lord, they have deserved death. 

Glos, Then be your eyes the witness of their evil, 
Look how I am bewitch'd ; behold mine arm 
Is like a blasted sapling, wither'd up : 
And this is Edward's wife, that monstrous witch. 
Consorted with that harlot, strumpet Shore, 
That by their witchcraft thus have marked me. 

Hast. If they have done this deed, my noble lord, — 

Glos. If ! Thou protector of this damned strumpet, 
Talk'st thou to me of ifs .? — Thou art a traitor : — 



86 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Off with his head : — now, by Saint Paul I swear, 
I will not dine until I see the same. — 
Love], and Catesby, look, that it be done ; 
The rest that love me, rise, and follow me/' 

The original version of this incident as 
given by More, and transcribed into the 
Chronicles of Hall and Holinshed has been 
very closely followed by Shakespeare, as will 
appear by the following, taken from More's 
' Life of Richard III. :' — 

" The protectour sette the lordes fast in com- 
oning, and therupon praying them to spare hym 
for a little while, departed thence. And sone 
after one hower betwene X. and XI. he returned 
into the chamber among them, al changed with a 
wonderful soure angrye countenaunce, knitting 
the browes, frowning and froting and knawingon 
hys lippes, and so sat him downe, in hys place : 
al the lordes much dismaied and sore merveil- 
ing of this maner of sodain chaunge, and what 
thing should him aile. Then when he had 
sitten still a while, thus he began : What were 
they worthy to have, that compasse and ymagine 
the distruccion of me, being so nere of blood 
unto the king and protectour of his riall person 
and his realme. At this question, al the lordes 
sat sore astonied, musyng much by whome thys 
question should be ment, of which every man 
wyst himself e clere. Then the lord chamberlen, 
as he that for the love betwene them thoughte 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD IIi: Sj 

he might be boldest with him, aunswered and 
sayd, that thai wer worthy to bee punished as 
heighnous traitors whatsoever they were. And 
al the other affirmed the same. . . . Then said 
the protectour : ye shal al se in what wise that 
sorceres and that other witch of her coun- 
sel Shoris wife with their affynite, have by 
their sorcery and witchcraft wasted my body. 
And therwith he plucked up hys doublet sieve 
to his elbow upon his left arme, where he 
shewed a werish withered arme and small, 
as it was never other. And therupon every 
mannes mind sore misgave them, well per- 
ceiving that this matter was but a quarel. . . . 
Netheles the lorde Chamberlen aunswered and 
sayd: certainly my lorde if they have so hei- 
nously done, thei be worthy heinouse punish- 
ment. What quod the protectour thou servest 
me I wene with iffes and with andes, I tel the 
thei have so done, and that I will make good 
on thy body traitour. And therwith as in a 
great anger, he clapped his fist upon the borde 
a great rappe. At which token given, one cried 
treason without the chambre. . . . And anon 
the protectour sayd to the lorde Hastings: I 
arest the traitour. What me my Lorde quod he. 
Yea the traitour, quod the protectour. . . . 
Then were they al quickly bestowed in divers 
chambres, except the lorde Chamberlen, whom 
the protectour bade spede and shryve hym a 
pace, for by saynt Poule (quod he) I wil not to 
dinner til I se thy hed of." 



SS RICHARD THE THIRD. 

In Act III. Scene 2, the following dialogue 
occurs : — 

^^ Hast. Cannot thy master sleep these tedious 
nights ? 

Mess. So it should seem by that I have to say. 
First, he commends him to your noble lordship. 

Hast. And then, — 

Mess. And then he sends you word, he dreamt 
To-night the boar had rased off his helm." 

In the fourth scene Hastings is made to 
say : — 

" Woe, woe, for England ! not a whit for me ; 
For I, too fond, might have prevented this : 
Stanley did dream, the boar did rase his helm ; 
But I disdain'd it, and did scorn to fly. 
Three times to-day my foot-cloth horse did stumble, 
And startled, when he look'd upon the Tower, 
As loath to bear me to the slaughter-house." 

More and Holinshed are Shakespeare's au- 
thorities for the subject matter of the above- 
mentioned incidents. 

More writes : - — 

"A marveilouse case is it to here, either the 
warnings of that he shoulde have voided, or 
the tokens of that he could not voide. For 
the self night next before his death, the lord 
Stanley sent a trustie secret messenger unto 
him at midnight in al the hast, requiring hym to 
rise and ryde away with hym, for he was dis- 



HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD Hi: 89 

posed utterly no longer to bide : he had so fereful 
a dreme, in which him thoughte that a bore with 
his tuskes so raced them both bi the heddes, 
that the blood ranne aboute both their shoul- 
ders. And forasmuch as the protector gave 
the bore for his cognisaunce, this dreme made so 
fereful an impression in his hart, that he was 
thoroughly determined no longer to tary, but 
had his horse redy, if the lord Hastinges wold 
go with him to ride so far yet the same night, 
that thei shold be out of danger ere dai . . . 

" Certain it is also, that in the riding toward 
the tower, the same morning in which he was be- 
hedded, his horse twise or thrise stumbled with 
him almost to the falling, which thing albeit 
ache man wote wel daily happeneth to them to 
whom no such mischaunce is toward : yet hath 
it ben of an olde rite and custome, observed as a 
token often times notably foregoing some great 
misfortune." 

Holinshed follows More word for word in 
recording the above incidents. 

Gloster urges Buckingham to appear before 
the people to shake their confidence in the 
legitimacy of Edward and Clarence (Act III. 
Scene 5) : — 

" Glos. Go, after, after, cousin Buckingham. 
The mayor towards Guildhall hies him in all post : — 
There, at your meetest vantage of the time, 
Infer the bastardy of Edward's children: 



90 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Buck. Doubt not my lord ; I '11 play the orator, 
As if the golden fee, for which I plead, 
Were for myself : and so, my lord, adieu. 

Glos. If you thrive well, bring them to Baynard's 
castle ; 
"Where you shall find me well accompanied. 
With reverend fathers, and well-learned bishops." 

They meet again in the court of Baynard's 
castle (Act III. Scene 7) : — 

*' Glos. How now, how now ? What say the citizens ? 

Buck. Now by the holy mother of our Lord, 
The citizens are mum, say not a word. 

Glos. Touch'd you the bastardy of Edward's chil- 
dren ? 

Buck. I did ; . . . 

I bade them that did love their country's good, 
Cry — God save Richard, England's royal king ! 

Glos. And did they so ? 

Buck. No, so God help me, they spake not a word ; 
But, like dumb statuas, or breathing stones, 
Star'd on each other, and look'd deadly pale. 
Which when I saw, I reprehended them ; 
And ask'd the mayor, what meant this wilful silence ; 
His answer was, — the people were not us'd 
To be spoke to, but by the recorder. 
Then he was urg'd to tell my tale again ; — 
Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke infei'red ; 
But nothing spoke in warrant from himself. 
When he had done, some followers of mine own, 
At lower end o' the hall, hurl'd up their caps. 
And some ten voices cried, God save king Richard! 
And thus I took the vantage of those few, — 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III: 91 

Thanks, gentle citizens, and friends, quoth I ; 
This general applause, and cheerful shotct 
Argues your wisdom, and your love to Richard: 
And even here brake off, and came away." 

Sir Thomas More gives in full Bucking- 
ham's oration, which was historically spoken 
for the very purpose indicated by Shakespeare 
in the drama. More has also left on record 
the effect of the oration on the people : — 

" When the duke had saied, and looked that 
the people whome he hoped that the Mayor had 
framed before, shoulde after this proposicion 
made, have cried, king Richarde, king Rich- 
arde : all was husht and mute, and not one 
word aunswered thereunto. . . . And by and by 
somewhat louder, he rehersed them the same 
matter againe in other order and other wordes. 
. . . But were it for wonder or feare, or that 
eche looked that other shoulde speake fyrste : 
not one woorde was there aunswered of all the 
people that stode before, but al was as styl as 
the midnight, . . . when the Mayor saw thys 
he wyth other pertners of that counsayle, drew 
aboute the duke and sayed that the people had 
not ben accustomed there to be spoken unto 
but by the recorder. ... At these wordes the 
people began to whisper among themselves 
secretly, that the voyce was neyther loude nor 
distincke, but as it were the sounde of a swarme 
of bees, tyl at the last in the nether ende of the 



92 RICHARD THE THIRD, , 

hal, a bushement of the dukes servants and 
Nashef eldes and other longing to the protectour, 
with some prentises and Jaddes that thrust into 
the hal amonge the prese, began sodainely at 
mennes backes to crye owte as lowde as their 
throtes would gyve : king Richarde kinge Rich- 
arde, and threwe up their cappes in token of joye. 
And they that stode before, cast back theyr 
heddes mervaileling thereof, but nothing they 
sayd. And when the duke and the Maier saw 
thys maner, they wysely turned it to theyr pur- 
pose. And said it was a goodly cry and a joyfull 
to here, every man with one voice no manne 
sayeng nay." 

In this matter Holinshed transcribes literally 
from Sir Thomas More. 

When, in Act IV. Scene 2, Richard pro- 
poses to Buckingham to make way with Ed- 
ward, the Duke hesitates, and asks for time 
to consider the matter. This angers Richard, 
who descended from his throne, gnawing his 
lip and muttering : — 

" K. Rich. I will converse with iron-witted fools, 
And unrespective boys ; none are for me, 
That look unto me with considerate eyes ; — 
High reaching Buckingham grows circumspect. — 
Boy, 

Page. My lord. 

K. Rich. Know'st thou not any whom corrupting 
gold 
Would tempt unto a close exploit of death ? 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD III.' 93 

Page. I know a discontented gentleman, 
Whose humble means match not his haughty mind : 
Gold were as good as twenty orators, 
And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything. 

K. Rich. What is his name ? 

Page. His name, my lord, is Tyrrel. 

K. Rich. I partly know the man : Go, call him 
hither, boy." 

The page brings Tyrrel into the presence 
of Richard, who engages him to make way 

with 

"... those bastards in the Tower." 

This incident is based upon, but is a slight 
modification of, the historical record to be 
found in Holinshed and More. It appears 
that Richard sent one John Grene with a 
letter to Sir Robert Brakenbury, constable 
of the Tower, requesting him to put the 
princes to death. Brakenbury refused to 
commit the murder. Grene returned with 
the refusal to Richard, — 

"wherwith he toke such displeasure and 
thought, that the same night, he said unto a 
secrete page of his : Ah whome shall a man 
trust? those that I have broughte up myself e, 
those that I had went would most surely serve 
me, even those fayle me, and at my commannde- 
mente wyll do nothyng for me. Sir quod his 
page there lyeth one on your paylet without, 



94 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

that I dare well say to do your grace pleasure, 
the thyng were right harde that he wold refuse, 
meaning this by sir James Tyrell, which was 
a man of right goodlye personage, and for 
natures gyftes, woorthy to have served a muche 
better prince, if he had well served god, and 
by grace obtayned as muche trouthe and good 
wil as he had strength and witte. . . . For upon 
this pages wordes king Richard arose, and 
came out into the pallet chamber, on which he 
found in bed sir James and sir Thomas Tyrels, 
of parson like and brethren of blood, but noth- 
ing of kin in condicion. Then said the king 
merely to them : What ? sirs, be ye in bed so 
soone, and calling up syr James, brake to him 
secretely his mind in this mischievous matter. 
In whiche he founde him nothing strange," etc. 

In Act IV. Scene 4, Margaret speaks of 
Richard as 

" That dog, that had his teeth before his eyes, 
To worry lambs, and lap their gentle blood." 

And the Duchess of York, addressing Rich- 
ard, says : — 

" A grievous burden was thy birth to me." 

In 'Henry VL' the King addresses Gloster 
with the reproachful words : — 

" Thy mother felt more than a mother's pain, 
And yet brought forth less than a mother's hope ; 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 95 

Teeth had'st thou in thy head, when thou wast born, 
To signify, — thou cam'st to bite the world." 

After stabbing the King, Gloster solilo- 
quizes : — 

"Indeed, 't is true, that Henry told me of; 
For I have often heard my mother say, 
I came into the world with my legs forward ; 

The midwife wonder'd ; and the women cried, 
O, Jes2is bless us, he is born ivith teeth I " 

More and Holinshed give the historical ba- 
sis for these incidents of the birth of Richard 
referred to in Shakespeare's drama : — 

"It is for trouth reported, that the Duches 
his mother had so muche a doe in her travaile, 
that shee coulde not bee delivered of hym un- 
cutte : and that hee came into the worlde with 
the feete forwarde, as menne bee borne out- 
warde, and (as the fame runneth) also not 
untothed." 

In Act IV. Scene 4, Richard entreats 
Queen Elizabeth to plead his suit with her 
daughter. 

«^. Rich. Then in plain terms tell her my loving 

tale. 
Q. Eliz. Plain and not honest, is too harsh a style. 
K, Rich. Your reasons are too shallow and too 

quick. 



.g6 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

Q. Eliz. O, no, my reasons are too deep and 

dead ; — 
Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves. 
K. Rich. Harp not on that string, madam ; that is 

past. 
Q. Eliz. Harp on it still shall I, till heart-strings 

break." 

As the figure " Harp not on that string " 
occurs in More's ' Life of Richard III.,' it is 
reasonable to suppose, though it had long 
7^*^' been a common expression, that Shakespeare 

borrowed it from More or from Holinshed, 
though he uses it in a different connection 
and puts it into the mouth of a different 
person. 

The Lord Cardinal engages in a discussion 
with Queen Elizabeth on the use and abuse 
of sanctuary, in which Lord Howard joins. 
The latter by an indiscreet remark brings a 
mild rebuke upon himself. Sir-Thomas More 
writes : — 

" The Cardinall made a countinance to the 
other Lord, that he should harp no more upon 
that string." 

In the histories these words are spoken in 
the presence of Elizabeth, but are addressed 
by the Cardinal to Lord Howard ; in the 
drama they are addressed to Elizabeth by 



HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD HI.' 97 

Richard. It is very probable that Shake- 
speare found the suggestion in the history. 

On the eve of the day of battle Richard, 
having made arrangements for the conflict, 
proceeds to his tent with, — 

" So, I am satisfied. Give me a bowl of wine : 
I have not that alacrity of spirit, 
Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont to have." 

This corresponds with the historical record 
as found in Holinshed : — 

" His heart being almost damped, he prog- 
nosticated before the doubtfull chance of the 
battell to come ; not using the alacritie and 
mirth of mind and countenance as he was ac- 
customed to doo before he came toward the 
battell." 

The ghost scenes and the troubled dreams 
of Richard on the eve of battle, so vividly 
represented by the masterly pen of Shake- 
speare, were not purely imaginary and created 
for dramatic effect ; they were based on his- 
tory or tradition, and belonged to the life and 
experience of Richard. 

No less than eleven ghosts rise to predict 
disaster for Richard in the approaching battle ; 
they are the ghosts of his murdered victims, 

7 



98 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

and their appearance fills him with terror. 
As they vanish he starts firom his dream, 
with, — 

*' Give me another horse, — bind up my wounds, — 
Have mercy, Jesu ! — Soft ; I did but dream, 

coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me ! 
The lights burn blue. — It is now dead midnight. 
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. 
What do I fear ? Myself ? there 's none else by : 
Richard loves Richard ; that is, I am I. 

Is there a murderer here ? No ; — Yes ; I am : 
Then fly, — What, from myself ? Great reason : 

Why? 
Lest I revenge. What ? Myself on myself ? 
Alack ! I love myself. Wherefore ? for any good, 
That I myself have done unto myself ? 
O, no : alas, I rather hate myself, 
For hateful deeds committed by myself. 

1 am a villain : Yet I lie, I am not. 

Fool, of thyself speak well : — Fool, do not flatter. 
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, 
And every tongue brings in a several tale. 
And every tale condemns me for a villain. 
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree; 
Murder, stern murder, in the dir'st degree ; 
All several sins, all us'd in each degree, — 
Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty ! guilty ! 
I shall despair. — There is no creature loves me ; 
And, if I die, no soul will pity me ; — 
Nay, wherefore should they .'* since that I myself 
Find in myself no pity to myself. 
Methought, the souls of all that I had murder'd 
Came to my tent : and every one did threat 
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard." 



HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD III." 99 

On the morning of the fatal day, Ratcliff 
enters Richard's tent, when the trembling 
King says : — 

** O Ratcliff, I have dream'd a fearful dream ! — 
What thinkest thou ? Will our friends prove all true ? 

Rat. No doubt, my lord. 

K. Rich. Ratcliff, I fear, I fear, — 

Rat. Nay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows. 

K. Rich. By the apostle Paul, shadows to-night 
Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard, 
Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers. 
Armed in proof, and led by shallow Richmond." 

The historical basis for such dramatic rep- 
resentation as the above may be found in the 
following passages from More, Grafton, and 
Hohnshed. More says : — 

" I have heard by credible report of such 
as war secrete with his chamberers, that after 
this abbominable deede done, he never hadde 
quiet in his minde, hee never thought himself 
sure. Where he went abrode, his eyen whirled 
about, his body privily fenced, his hand ever on 
his dager, his countenance and maner like one 
alway ready to strike againe, he toke ill rest a 
nightes, lay long wakyng and musing, sore weried 
with care and watch, rather slumbered than slept, 
troubled wyth feareful dreames, sodainly somme 
tyme sterte up, leape out of his bed and runne 
about the chamber, so was his restles herte 
continually tossed and tumbled with the tedious 



100 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

impression and stormy remembrance of his 
abominable dede." 

Holinshed moralizes on the disturbed con- 
dition of Richard's mind : — 

" Than the which there can be no greater 
torment. For a giltie conscience inwardlie ac- 
cusing and bearing witnesse against an offender, 
is such a plague and punishment, as hell itself 
(with all the feends therein) can not affoord one 
of greater horror and affliction." 

In Grafton's Chronicles it is written : — 

" In the meane season, Kyng Richarde . . . 
marched to a place meete for two battayles to 
encounter by a Village called Bosworth, not 
farre from Leycester, and there he pitched hys 
fielde, refreshed hys souldyours and toke his 
rest. The fame went that he had the same 
night a dreadfull and a terrible dreame, for it 
seemed to him beyng a sleepe that he sawe 
dyvers ymages like terrible Devils which pulled 
and haled him, not suffering him to take any 
quiet or rest. The which straunge vision not 
so sodainly strake his hart with a sodaine feare, 
but it stuffed his head and troubled his minde 
with many dreadfull and busie imaginations. 
. . . And least that it might be suspected that 
he was abashed for feare of his enemies, and for 
that cause looked so pitteously, he recyted and 
declared to his familiar friends in the morning 



HISTORICAL BASIS OP 'RICHARD Hi: lOl 

his wonderful vision and terrible dreame. But 
I think this was no dreame, but a punction and 
prick of his sinnefull conscience, for the con- 
science is so much more charged and aggravate 
as the offence is greater and more heynous in 
degree." 

Holinshed adds to Grafton's words his own 
moralizing : — 

" So that king Richard, by this reckoning, 
must needs have a woonderfull troubled mind, 
because the deeds that he had doone, as they 
were heinous and unnaturall, so did they excite 
and stirre up extraordinarie motions of trouble 
and vexations in his conscience." 

Now, if the Primrose Criticism would laugh 
^yhen ghosts rise before the tent of Richard, 
let it laugh at Sir Thomas More, Grafton, Hol- 
inshed, tradition, and history; not at Shake- 
speare, who merely dramatized the incident. 

The orations of Richard and Richmond 
on the field of battle Shakespeare has con- 
densed from Grafton's and Holinshed's 
Chronicles, where they appear in full. The 
dramatist has preserved the ideas expressed, 
and, in many cases, the language and figures 
used by the historians. So closely do the 
speeches of Richard and Richmond, as they 
appear in Shakespeare, follow those found in 



I02 RICHARD THE THIRD, 

Holinshed, that they would be considered 
plagiarisms if put into the mouths of other 
persons. 

In the historic oration Richard speaks of 
the "beggarly Britons" and "faynt harted 
Frenchmen " who come against them. In 
the play he calls them 

" A sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, 
A scum of Bretagnes and base lackey peasants ; " 

and he cries : — 

" Let 's whip these stragglers o'er the seas again ; 
Lash hence these over-weening rags of France ; 
These famished beggars weary of their lives." 

In speaking of Richmond, in the historic 
oration, he says : — 

"And to begin with the erle of Richmond, 
capteine of this rebellion, he is a Welsh milke- 
sop, a man of small courage, and of lesse ex- 
perience in martiall acts and feats of warre, 
brought up by my moothers meanes and mine, 
like a captive in a close cage in the court of 
Franncis duke of Britagne ; and never saw ar- 
mie," etc. (Holinshed.) 

In the dramatic oration Richard says : — 

" And who doth lead them, but a paltry fellow. 
Long kept in Bretagne at our mother's cost "i 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 103 

A milk-sop, one that never in his life 
Felt so much cold as overshoes in snow ? " 

Richmond says, in his historic oration : — 

" I doubt not but God wil rather aide us (ye 
and fight for us). . . . Ourcauseis so justthatno 
enterprise can be of more vertue, both by the 
lawes divine and civile." (Grafton.) 

In the play he says : — 

" God, and our good cause, fight upon our side.'* 

Again, the Chronicles put these words into 
Richmond's mouth : — 

" What can be more honest, goodly, or godly 
quarrell than to fight against a Captayne, being 
an homicide, and a murderer of his owne blood, 
and progenie? 

"Who will spare yonder tirant, Richard Duke 
of Glocester untruly calling himself king, con- 
sidering that he hath violated, and broken both 
the lawe of God and man, what vertue is in 
him, which was the confusion of his brother, 
and murtherer of his Nephewes?" 

In the play Richmond says : — 

" For what is he they follow ? truly, gentlemen, 
A bloody tyrant, and a homicide ; 
One rais'd in blood, and one in blood establish'd ; 
One that made means to come by what he hath, 



104 RICHARD THE THIRD. 

And slaughter'd those that were the means to help 

him ; 
A base foul stone, made precious by the foil 
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set ; 
One that hath ever been God's enemy : " etc. 

This interesting comparison of the speeches 
of the play with the speeches of the chroni- 
cle might be followed still further ; but enough • 
has been done to show that the drama does 
not vary from history in the substance of these 
battle harangues. 

It is acknowledged that this short chapter 
cannot, even as a whole, claim to be an ex- 
haustive comparison of the play of * Richard 
III.' with the historical authorities on which it 
is based. There are many other incidents in 
the play the origin of which might easily be 
traced to tradition and history ; but a sufficient 
number of illustrations have been produced to 
indicate beyond all question the true sources 
of the subject matter of '■ Richard III.' 

It may be found in several instances that 
Shakespeare has written nonsense, for which 
critics hold him responsible, when the non- 
sense is the result of the historian's mistakes 
or weaknesses. Historical accuracy is one of 
the merits of this tragedy of ' Richard III.,' 
"wherein," says Milton, "the Poet us'd not 



HISTORICAL BASIS OF 'RICHARD Hi: 105 

much Licence in departing from the truth of 
History, which delivers him a deep Dis- 
sembler, not of his affections only, but of 
Religion." 

The Richard of Shakespeare is the Richard 
of History. 




PART III. 

THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. 



"Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; 
with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the 
modesty of nature : for anything so overdone is from the 
purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first, and now, 
was, and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirrour up to nature: 
to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and 
the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure." 




THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. 




HE stage is not the best interpreter 
of Shakespeare. It has been the 
most efficient corrupter of that su- 
preme dramatist. The mutilations of the 
original text, the interpolations and elimina- 
tions, which have rendered it almost impossi- 
ble to determine what Shakespeare originally 
wrote, have originated in the theatre. Very- 
few of the actors of the English stage have 
been scholars, though many of them have 
ranked with men of highest native intellect- 
uality and taste. 

Many a genius has been able to catch the 
spirit of Shakespeare's characters, and to pre- 
sent upon the stage thrilling and captivating 
performances, who has lacked the knowledge, 
learning, critical acumen, and literary taste 
necessary to a thorough and scientific study 



no RICHARD THE THIRD. 

of Shakespeare as a literature. It is well 
known that Kemble, Cooke, Kean, and 
J. B. Booth made some of their most telling 
" points " by glaring misinterpretations of 
Shakespeare's thought. It has not infre- 
quently transpired that the actor has given to 
a Shakespearian character an interpretation 
which, while it stamped the performance with 
the actor's genius or eccentricity, almost de- 
stroyed its Shakespearian identity. The stu- 
dent and scholar of to-day owe more to 
Pope, Theobald, Hanmer, Johnson, Steevens, 
Malone, Ulrici, Goethe, Gervinus, Collier, 
Halliwell-Phillipps, and Richard Grant White, 
for present light on everything that is Shake- 
spearian in literature, than to all the actors 
that have strutted the stage from the days of 
Burbage to the age of Salvini, Irving, and 
Edwin Booth. Actors have not enriched the 
theme by any valuable restorations to the 
text, any wise verbal criticism, any antiqua- 
rian research and discovery, any etymological 
or grammatical elucidations, any historical or 
classical illustrations of importance. For all 
these important helps to the study and com- 
prehension of Shakespeare we are indebted 
to men of letters and of the academic gown 
rather than to men of the sock and buskin. 



THE HISTRIONIC RICHARDS. iii 

It is nevertheless interesting to consider 
the merits of those great actors who by com- 
mon consent have been the finest interpreters 
of Shakespeare on the stage. In calling to 
our attention the greatest Richards of the 
theatre it is not surprising that we are com- 
pelled to summon before us the greatest actors, 
the most conspicuous histrionic geniuses that 
have graced the English stage. No mean 
actor has ever been able to worthily represent 
Richard III., which fact must add peculiar 
lustre to the fame of its author. 

The first, the original Richard, was a friend 
and a fellow actor of Shakespeare, and 
doubtless studied the great character in the 
light of its author's instruction. This was 
Richard Burbage, '' England's great Roscius." 
He was born in 1566, two years after the 
great poet, and died in 16 19, surviving his 
illustrious friend but three years. The name 
of this renowned actor appears second in the 
list of Principal Actors, of which Shake- 
speare's is first, printed in the first foHo edi- 
tion of the poet's works. Reference has 
already been made to the Tooley anecdote, 
in which both Burbage and Shakespeare as- 
sume the name of Richard III. The story 
would indicate that Burbage was as univer- 



112 



RICHARD THE THIRD. 



sally recognized to be the actor of the charac- 
ter as Shakespeare was to be the author of it. 

In a play performed at one of the Uni- 
versities, while Burbage was performing this 
tragedy and making fame in the character of 
Richard, the actor is represented as teaching 
an apt pupil how to perform the part ; which 
would also seem to intimate that he was 
recognized to be the Richard of his day, and 
the authority on the subject so far as the 
theatrical representation of the character was 
concerned. In the literature of his day, 
Burbage is perhaps more conspicuously and 
. .Jogistically identified with this than with any 
other character which he assumed. Bishop 
Corbet represents that when he visited Bos- 
worth field his host confounded Burbage with 
Richard in describing the battle, showing what 
a profound impression the actor had made 
in this character. 

" Besides what of his knowledge he could say, 
He had authentic notice from the play, 
Shown chiefly by that one perspicuous thing, 
That he mistook a player for a King ; 
For when he should have said, here Richard died 
And called * a horse, a horse ' — he Burbadge 
cried." 

Burbage must have resembled Garrick in 
universality and versatility of genius, as he 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 067 326 2 



